Classic Poem

Peace, beldam ugly! thou'lt not find
M'ears bottles for enchanted wind;
That breath of thine can only raise
New storms, and discompose the seas.
It may (assisted by the clatter)
A Pigmaean army scatter;
Or move, without the smallest stream,
Loretto's chapel once again,
And blow St. Goodrick, while he prays,
And knows not what it is he says,
And helps false Latin with a hem
From Finckly to Jerusalem;
Or in th' Pacific sea supply
The wind, that Nature doth deny.
What dost thou think, I can retain
All this and sprout it out again,
As a surcharged whale doth spew
Old rivers to receive in new?
Thou art deceiv'd: even Æol's cave
That can all other blasts receive,
Would be too small to let in thine;
How, then, the narrow ears of mine?
Defect of organs may me cause
By chance to pillorize an ass;
Yet, should I shake his ears, they'd be,
Though long, too strait to hearken thee.
Yet if thou hast a mind to hear
How high thy voice's merits are,
Attend the Cham, and when he's din'd
Skreek princes leave that have a mind;
Or serve the States, thou'lt useful come,
And have the pay of every drum;
Or trudge to Utrecht, there outrun
Dame Skurman's score of tongues, with one.
But pray be still; O, now I fear,
There may be torments for the ear!
O, let me, when I chance to die,
In Vulcan's anvil buried lie,
Rather than hear thy tongue once knell, —
That Tom a Lincoln and Bow bell!