Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) was an Irish satirist, essayist, and poet. Best known for "Gulliver's Travels," his poetry includes "A Description of a City Shower" and "Vers…
"By holy zeal inspired, and led by fame, To thee, once favourite isle, with joy I came; What time the Goth, the Vandal, and the Hun,"
"The enclosed prologue is formed upon the story of the secretary's not allowing you to act, unless you would pay him 300 per annum; upon which you"
"An ass's hoof alone can hold That poisonous juice, which kills by cold. Methought, when I this poem read, No vessel but an ass's he"
"Dear Tom, I'm surprised that your verse did not jingle; But your rhyme was not double, 'cause your sight was but single. For, as Helsham"
"WRITTEN AT LONDON By poets we are well assured That love, alas! can ne'er be cured; A complicated heap of ills, Despising bo"
""Sic siti laetantur docti." With honour thus by Carolina placed, How are these venerable bustoes graced! O queen, with more t"
"DOCTOR. Deaf, giddy, helpless, left alone. ANSWER. Except the first, the fault's your own. DOCTOR. To all my friends a burden grown."
"By the just vengeance of incensed skies, Poor Bishop Judas late repenting dies. The Jews engaged him with a paltry bribe, Amounting"
"O Neptune! Neptune! must I still Be here detain'd against my will? Is this your justice, when I'm come Above two hundred miles from"
"Non domus et fundus, non aeris acervus et auri. - HOR. Epist., I, ii, 47. It was, my lord, the dexterous shift Of t'other Jonatha"
"Ye paltry underlings of state, Ye senators who love to prate; Ye rascals of inferior note, Who, for a dinner, sell a vote; Ye"
"WITH half an eye your riddle I spy, I observe your wicket hemm'd in by a thicket, And whatever passes is strain'd through glasses."
"HOLD! hold, my good friends; for one moment, pray stop ye, I return ye my thanks, in the name of poor Hoppy. He's not the first person"
"WRITTEN JUNE, 1727, JUST AFTER THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF GEORGE I, WHO DIED THE 12TH OF THAT MONTH IN GERMANY [1] This poem was written when"
"We give the world to understand, Our thriving Dean has purchased land; A purchase which will bring him clear Above his rent fou"
"To the tune of "Commons and Peers." A wonderful age Is now on the stage: I'll sing you a song, if I can,"
"POPE has the talent well to speak, But not to reach the ear; His loudest voice is low and weak, The Dean too deaf to hear."
"My meaning will be best unravell'd, When I premise that Tim has travell'd. In Lucas's by chance there lay The Fables writ by Mr. Ga"
"If there be truth in what you sing, Such godlike virtues in the king; A minister[1] so fill'd with zeal And wisdom for the commonwe"
"A paper book is sent by Boyle, Too neatly gilt for me to soil. Delany sends a silver standish, When I no more a pen can brandish."
"Mr. William Crowe, Recorder of Blessington's Address to her Majesty, as copied from the London Gazette. To the Queen's most Excellent Majes"
"Logicians have but ill defined As rational, the human kind; Reason, they say, belongs to man, But let them prove it if they can."
"Are the guests of this house still doom'd to be cheated? Sure the Fates have decreed they by halves should be treated. In the days of go"
"After venting all my spite, Tell me, what have I to write? Every error I could find Through the mazes of your mind, Have my bu"
"Not asking or expecting aught, One day I went to view the court, Unbent and free from care or thought, Though thither fears"
"TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF ORMOND, 4TH JULY, 1711 This city can omit no opportunity of expressing their hearty affection for her majesty's per"
"TO DICK[1] Foulest brute that stinks below, Why in this brown dost thou appear? For wouldst thou make a fouler sho"
"The farmer's goose, who in the stubble Has fed without restraint or trouble, Grown fat with corn and sitting still, Can scarce get"
"All folks who pretend to religion and grace, Allow there's a HELL, but dispute of the place: But, if HELL may by logical rules be define"
"The life of man to represent, And turn it all to ridicule, Wit did a puppet-show invent, Where the chief actor is a fool."
"Atria longa patent. Sed nec cenantibus usquam Nec somno locus est. Quam bene non habitas! MART., lib. xii, Ep. 50. See, here'"
"Stella this day is thirty-four, (We shan't dispute a year or more:) However, Stella, be not troubled, Although thy size and years a"
"OCT. 10, 1718 NINE IN THE MORNING To you whose virtues, I must own With shame, I have too lately known; To you, by art and natur"
"At Market-Hill, as well appears By chronicle of ancient date, There stood for many hundred years A spacious thorn before th"
"Begotten, and born, and dying with noise, The terror of women, and pleasure of boys, Like the fiction of poets concerning the wind,"
"WRITTEN MANY YEARS SINCE; AND TAKEN FROM COKE'S FOURTH INSTITUTE THE HIGH COURT OF PARLIAMENT, CAP. I Sir E. Coke says: "Every member of t"
"1730 - quis iniquae Tam patiens urbis, tam ferreus, ut teneat se? - -Juv. i, 30. In ancient times, as bards indite, (If cle"
"Ye poets ragged and forlorn, Down from your garrets haste; Ye rhymers, dead as soon as born, Not yet consign'd to paste;"
"TO LADY CARTERET Of all inhabitants on earth, To man alone I owe my birth, And yet the cow, the sheep, the bee, Are all my pa"
"Never sleeping, still awake, Pleasing most when most I speak; The delight of old and young, Though I speak without a tongue. N"
"When foes are o'ercome, we preserve them from slaughter, To be hewers of wood, and drawers of water. Now, although to draw water is not"
"As Thomas was cudgell'd one day by his wife, He took to the street, and fled for his life: Tom's three dearest friends came by in the sq"
"WRITTEN A.D. 1720-21. - Stella. All travellers at first incline Where'er they see the fairest sign And if they find the chamber"
"TRANSLATED BY DR. DUNKIN Lo! from the top of yonder cliff, that shrouds Its airy head amid the azure clouds, Hangs a huge fragment"
"If neither brass nor marble can withstand The mortal force of Time's destructive hand; If mountains sink to vales, if cities die, A"
"Lesbia for ever on me rails, To talk of me she never fails. Now, hang me, but for all her art, I find that I have gain'd her heart."
"Ever eating, never cloying, All-devouring, all-destroying, Never finding full repast, Till I eat the world at last."
"Hic infra situm est corpus FREDERICI DUCIS DE SCHOMBERG. ad BUDINDAM occisi, A.D. 1690. DECANUS et CAPITULUM maximopere etiam"
"We are little brethren twain, Arbiters of loss and gain, Many to our counters run, Some are made, and some undone: But men fin"
"UPON THEIR RIDING THE CIRCUIT Now the active young attorneys Briskly travel on their journeys, Looking big as any giants, On"
"O, heavenly born! in deepest dells If fairest science ever dwells Beneath the mossy cave; Indulge the verdure of the woods,"
"Desponding Phyllis was endu'd With ev'ry talent of a prude: She trembled when a man drew near; Salute her, and she turn'd her ear:"
"Pallas, observing Stella's wit Was more than for her sex was fit, And that her beauty, soon or late, Might breed confusion in the s"
"TO DR. SHERIDAN, 1718 Delany reports it, and he has a shrewd tongue, That we both act the part of the clown and cow-dung; We lie"
"From a town that consists of a church and a steeple, With three or four houses, and as many people, There went an Address in great form"
"Two college sophs of Cambridge growth, Both special wits and lovers both, Conferring, as they used to meet, On love, and books, in"
"WRITTEN IN DECEMBER, 1693 Strange to conceive, how the same objects strike At distant hours the mind with forms so like! Whether"
"Dear Dick, pr'ythee tell by what passion you move? The world is in doubt whether hatred or love; And, while at good Cashel you rail with"
"That Downpatrick's Dean, or Patrick's down went, Like two arrand Deans, two Deans errant I meant; So that Christmas appears at Bellcampe"
"Written A.D. 1712. - Stella. Imitated from Horace, Lib. i, Epist. 5. Toland, the Deist, distinguished himself as a party writer in be"