Page images
PDF
EPUB

THE

SATIRE S

O F

DR. JOHN DONNE,

DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S,

VERSIFIED

Quid vetat et nofmet Lucili scripta legentes
Quaerere, num illius, num rerum dura negârit
Verficulos natura magis factos, et euntes

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

YES; thank my ftars! as early as I knew

This Town, I had the sense to hate it too:
Yet here, as even in Hell, there must be still
One Giant-Vice, fo excellently ill,

That all befide, one pities, not abhors;
As who knows Sappho, fmiles at other whores..
I grant that Poetry's a crying fin;

It brought (no doubt) th' Excise and Army in:
Catch'd like the Plague, or Love, the Lord knows how,
But that the cure is ftarving, all allow.

Yet like the Papift's is the Poet's state,
Poor and difarm'd, and hardly worth your hate!

SATIRE

II.

SIR; though (I thank God for it) I do hate

Perfectly all this town; yet there's one state

In all ill things, fo excellently best,

That hate towards them, breeds pity towards the rest
Though Poetry, indeed, be fuch a fin,

As I think, that brings dearth and Spaniards in:
Tho' like the peftilence, and old fashion'd love,
Riddlingly it catch men, and doth remove
Never, till it be ftarv'd out; yet their state
Is. poor, difarm'd, like Papists not worth hate.

Here a lean bard, whofe wit could never give Hmself a dinner, makes an actor live:

The Thief condemn'd, in law already dead,
So prompts, and faves a rogue who cannot read.
Thus as the pipes of fome carv'd Organ move,
The gilded puppets dance and mount above.
Heav'd by the breath th'inspiring bellows blow:
Th' infpiring bellows lie and pant below.

One fings the Fair; but fongs no longer move;
No rat is rhym'd to death, nor maid to love:
In love's, in nature's fpite, the fiege they hold,
And fcorn the flesh, the dev'l, and all but gold.

These write to Lords, fome mean reward to get, As needy beggars fing at doors for meat..

Those write because all write, and fo have still
Fxcufe for writing, and for writing ill.

One (like a wretch, which at bar judg'd as dead.
Yet prompts him which stands next, and cannot read,
And faves his life) gives Idiot Actors means
(Starving himself) to live by's labour'd fcenes.
As in fome Organs, Puppets dance above,
And bellows pant below, which them do move.
One would move love by rhymes; but witchcraft's
charms

Bring not now their old fears, not their old harms; Rams and flings now are filly battery,

Pistolets are the best artillery.

And they who write to Lords, rewards to get,

Are they not like fingers at doors for meat?

Wretched indeed! but far more wretched yet Is he who makes his meal on others wit:

'Tis chang'd, no doubt, from what it was before,
His rank digeftion makes it wit no more:
Senfe, past thro' him, no longer is the fame;
For food digefted takes another name.

I pafs o'er all thofe Confeffors and Martyrs,
Who live like S-tt-n, or who die like Chartres,
Out-cant old Efdras, or out-drink his heir,
Out-ufure Jews, or Irishmen out-swear;
Wicked as pages, who in early years

Act fins which Prifca's Confeffor fcarce hears.
Even those I pardon, for whofe finful fake
Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make;

And they who write, because all write, have ftill That 'fcufe for writing, and for writing ill.

But he is worst, who beggarly doth chaw
Others wits fruits, and in his ravenous maw
Rankly digefted, doth these things out-fpue,
As his own things; and they're his own, 'tis true,
For if one eat my meat, tho' it be known
The meat was mine, the excrement's his own.
But thefe do me no harm, nor they which use,
to out-ufure Jews,

T'out-drink the fea, t' out-fwear the Letanie,
Who with fins all kinds as familiar be
As Confeffors, and for whofe finful fake
Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make

« PreviousContinue »