Classic Poem

Well, Ralph, howe'er you're pleased to strive
To make me think that Tom's alive —
Nay, that he's well as heart can wish,
In goodly plight, and sound as fish,
When there's an Elegy on's death
With Epitaph put underneath,
Such as himself has often made
When other men in grave were laid,
Or helped to make ( " When Death the Tamer
By Mortgage Seized the Corpse of Damer " ) —
I needs must think it cannot fail,
But Tom is dead as a door nail.
Not only quatenus schoolmaster,
Droll, punster, fiddler, poetaster;
Not dead in sin and foul offense,
Or in some other mystic sense;
But cruel Death has made a morsel
Of Thomas' little outward vessel.
If you'd my meaning plainer have,
Why, honest Tom is in his grave,
Bum-shot by Obadiah Fizle,
Which makes mine eyes full sorely drizzle,
Or by that Engineer accursed
Hight Fartinando Puffendorst.
But you to prove it all a joke,
Tell me he's seen in streets to walk.
What then, have you not often read
Of men that walked when they were dead,
Especially where vital date
Was shortened by untimely Fate?
" But he no murderer accuses,
Blames none, " you say, " for such abuses,
But cries as loud as tongue can bawl
That he was never dead at all. "
Well! Partridge did pretend the same,
Swearing his death was all a flam
When the learn'd Squire had proved it plain,
That he was dead and dead again.

Pray go to Bedlam, search it round
For th' maddest man that can be found.
Be th' wretch's senses ne'er so bad,
He'll always say he is not mad.
But this you say, " can be no goblin
That walks in Capel Street and Dublin,
'Cause he by night's not only seen,
As other goblins oft have been;
But thousands him have set their eyes on
When Phoebus is above horizon.
But goblins, elves, " you say, " and sprites
Play all their gambols in the nights;
But soon as once the cock does crow,
Away they're all compelled to go.
And every phantom disappear
At Matins sung by chanticleer;
Nor dare they come again in sight
Till darkness and succeeding night. "

I tell you that's a vulgar error,
Kept up, lest (too much cowed by terror)
Miss ne'er should leave her nurse's sight,
But dread the day as well as night.
And so, though Nan and Roger say
That goblins ne'er do walk by day,
We, all our learned doctors find
Of other sentiments and mind;
And many of 'em prove downright,
They walk by day as well as night.

Admit he thrashed ye two or three,
Who hawked about the Elegy,
And sent his boys, as you have hinted,
To break the press where it was printed:
You take this for a reason strong
That Tom's alive; I say you're wrong.
Can't sprites and goblins if they please
Beat, pinch and play such tricks as these?
But Tom, I'm sure, were he alive,
Some other method would contrive,
Whereby the world might plainly know
That he is still in statu quo ,
Than beat poor newsboys into mortar,
Which might be done by any porter.
Something peculiar we should see,
Which none could do but only he,
And put us clearly out of doubt
That vital spark's not yet gone out.

So when John Coates, with learned lore,
Gives out that Whalley is no more,
Pretending by the stars to know
That he's gone down to shades below;
Him Whalley by such art disproves,
As all our scruples quite removes,
And shows us plain beyond dispute
That Coates is but a lying brute.
He does not go and thrash his hide,
Nor only tell us he's belied;
This might be credited no better
By many than his own News Letter ;
But to confute his brother quack,
He straight sends out his Almanack ,
Which, with such learned cant he fills,
Such brags and stories of his pills,
Stuffed with such astrologic fictions,
Such prophecies and strange predictions,
As not a man alive but he
In all the world can e'er foresee.

Tom was as cunning every whit
As Whalley, and had as much wit;
And were he living, I dare say,
Would take the very selfsame way —
Which had he done, I'd then believe
And freely own that he's alive.
Had he but only writ a farce,
Or quaint enigma on his a — ,
Another Grammar had compiled,
Or vamped up old, anew for child;
Had he but some small paper writ
With great assurance, little wit,
And affectation to discerning
A hid'ous, per'lous deal of learning,
Full fraught with many a darling pun,
Some of them pilfered, some his own,
Run up on strings like onion heads,
As long as Father Floody's beads,
With style like fabled toad, whose drift's
To swell itself as big as Swift's,
Though there's as much between as is
'Tween his birch rod and Tully's fasces.

Now when I once shall come to find
But some small proof of such a kind,
I'll give my word and protestation
That I'll allow't for demonstration,
As plain as two and three make five,
That little Thomas is alive.
Till then, whatever is pretended,
I must believe his life is ended,
And that it is some subtle sprite
That does impose upon our sight,
That puts on Thomas' shape and clothes,
So slings its tail, so cocks its nose,
So scrapes sonatas, and so thrums,
So clapper-claws and firks poor bums,
And does the nicest judge beguile,
In everything but in his style;
His style, nor goblin, sprite nor elf,
Nor man comes up to but himself.