Classic Poem

Thus sung the Bard of old, and deem'd no fool,
" Sweet are the uses of adversity;"
A Dame who kicketh from your rump your stool,
And, savage, showeth not one grain of mercy t'ye;
Bids all your fancied-dearest friends turn tail;
Greets with wired whips, and blesses with a jail.

O Mistress of this wisdom-teaching pain,
With Pillory, Gibbet, Famine, in thy train,
Go knock, God bless thee, knock at others' doors.
By all my favourite Gods of Prose and Rhyme,
I feel not thy philosophy sublime:
Go, seek the zealot who thy stripes implores. . . .

My taste is dull; yes, vastly dull indeed:
I hate to see a brother-mortal bleed.
I hate to hear a gentle nature groan;
And, Goddess, more especially my own. . . .

Thou possibly mayst be a good physician,
But certes dost not know my weak condition
Blisters, and scarifying, and spare diet,
Would set my nervous system in a riot . . .
Thine " iron scourge" would really act in vain,
So apt am I to make wry mouths at pain;
At disappointment much inclined to moan.
Whenever then, O Goddess, things we see
That with one's nature so much disagree,
Methinks 'twere better they were let alone.

To tumble from a house, or from a tow'r,
And break a luckless brace of legs and arms,
Would make one look most miserably sour: —
Yet there are men who deem all these no harms.
Then seek them, Goddess; souse them on the stones;
And, for their goodly comfort, crack their bones.

If in a well-stuff'd coach, well-overset,
A broken leg and thigh and arm I get,
I am not, I confess, of that pure leaven,
To crawl out on my hands and knees, and say,
Grace-like, " For what I have received this day,
I humbly thank thee, O most gracious Heaven!"

O Mistress of the terrifying mien,
The boatswain's deep-toned voice and brawny arm,
Oh be not within leagues of Peter seen!
Thy cat-o'-nine-tails cannot, cannot charm.
A stupid Scholar, Goddess, I shall be:
Thy conversations are too deep for me. . . .

Besides, 'tis late, O Goddess, in the day;
I'm not a subject fit for thee to flay:
To speak the truth, my nerves too nicely feel.
Go, search the motley mixture of mankind;
Some young enthusiast wild thou soon mayst find,
Proud of thy whips, and glad to grace thy wheel.

So great for my own person is my love,
And hard thy lessons, I can't now begin 'em. —
Besides, as I have hinted just above,
I'd rather read of battles than be in 'em.