Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 8.djvu/87

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ANSWER TO PHEASANT AND LARK.
77

Thou champion for the commonweal:
Nor on a theme like this repine,
For once to wet thy pen divine:
Bestow that libeller a lash,
Who daily vends seditious trash:
Who dares revile the nation's wisdom,
But in the praise of virtue is dumb:
That scribbler lash, who neither knows
The turn of verse, nor style of prose;
Whose malice, for the worst of ends,
Would have us lose our English friends;
Who never had one public thought,
Nor ever gave the poor a groat.
One clincher more, and I have done,
I end my labours with a pun.
Jove send this Nightingale may fall,
Who spends his day and night in gall!

So, Nightingale and Lark adieu;
I see the greatest owls in you
That ever screech'd, or ever flew.





ON THE IRISH CLUB.

YEe paltry underlings of state,
Ye senators, who love to prate;
Ye rascals of inferiour note,
Who for a dinner sell a vote;
Ye pack of pensionary peers,
Whose fingers itch for poets' ears;
Ye bishops, far remov'd from saints,

Why all this rage? Why these complaints?

Why