On cobblers militant below,
Whom roguish boys, in stormy nights,
Torment by pissing out their lights,
Or through a chink convey their smoke,
Enclosed artificers to choke. 
  Thou, high exalted in thy sphere,
May’st follow still thy calling there. 
To thee the Bull will lend his hide,
By Phoebus newly tann’d and dry’d;
For thee they Argo’s hulk will tax,
And scrape her pitchy sides for wax: 
Then Ariadne kindly lends
Her braided hair to make thee ends;
The points of Sagittarius’ dart
Turns to an awl by heavenly art;
And Vulcan, wheedled by his wife,
Will forge for thee a paring-knife. 
For want of room by Virgo’s side,
She’ll strain a point, and sit[6] astride,
To take thee kindly in between;
And then the Signs will be Thirteen.

[Footnote 1:  For details of the humorous persecution of this impostor by Swift, see “Prose Works,” vol. i, pp. 298 et seq.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 2:  Partridge was a cobbler.—­Swift.]

[Footnote 3:  See his Almanack.—­Swift.]

[Footnote 4:  Allusion to the crescent-shaped ornament of gold or silver which distinguished the wearer as a senator. 
  “Appositam nigrae lunam subtexit alutae.”—­Juvenal, Sat. vii, 192; and
Martial, i, 49, “Lunata nusquam pellis.”—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 5:  Luciani Opera, xi, 17.]

[Footnote 6: 
    “ipse tibi iam brachia contrahit ardens
  Scorpios, et coeli iusta plus parte reliquit.” 
VIRG., Georg., i, 34.]

THE EPITAPH

Here, five feet deep, lies on his back
A cobbler, starmonger, and quack;
Who to the stars, in pure good will,
Does to his best look upward still. 
Weep, all you customers that use
His pills, his almanacks, or shoes;
And you that did your fortunes seek,
Step to his grave but once a-week;
This earth, which bears his body’s print,
You’ll find has so much virtue in’t,
That I durst pawn my ears, ’twill tell
Whate’er concerns you full as well,
In physic, stolen goods, or love,
As he himself could, when above.

A DESCRIPTION OF THE MORNING

WRITTEN IN APRIL 1709, AND FIRST PRINTED IN “THE TATLER"[1]

Now hardly here and there an hackney-coach
Appearing, show’d the ruddy morn’s approach. 
Now Betty from her master’s bed had flown,
And softly stole to discompose her own;
The slip-shod ’prentice from his master’s door
Had pared the dirt, and sprinkled round the floor. 
Now Moll had whirl’d her mop with dext’rous airs,
Prepared to scrub the entry and the stairs. 
The youth with broomy stumps began to trace
The kennel’s edge, where wheels had worn the place.[2]
The small-coal man was heard with cadence deep,
Till drown’d in shriller notes of chimney-sweep: 
Duns at his lordship’s gate began to meet;
And brickdust Moll had scream’d through half the street. 
The turnkey now his flock returning sees,
Duly let out a-nights to steal for fees:[3]
The watchful bailiffs take their silent stands,
And schoolboys lag with satchels in their hands.