Classic Poem

In imitation of P INDAR .

The simile's a very useful thing,
This priests and poets needs must own,
For when the clock-work of their brains run down,
A simile winds up the mental spring.
For instance, when a priest does scan
The fall of man,
And all its consequences dire,
He makes him first a little sportive pig,
So clean, so innocent, so trig,
And then an aged sow, deep wallowing in the mire!
Yes, sure the simile's a useful thing,
Another instance I will bring.

Thou'st seen a cork tost on the rain-swell'd stream,
Now up, now down, now whirl'd round and round,
Yet still 'twould swim,
And all the torrent's fury could not drown't;
So have I seen a forward empty fop
Tost in Wit's blanket, ridicul'd, &c.
Yet, after all the banter, off he'd hop,
Quite confident in self-sufficiency.

Ah! had kind Heaven,
For a defence,
Allow'd me half the brazen confidence
That she to many a cork-brain'd fool hath given!