The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 2

by Jonathan Swift

THE LAST SPEECH AND DYING WORDS OF DANIEL JACKSON

MY DEAR COUNTRYMEN,
—mediocribus esse poetis
Non funes, non gryps, non concessere columnae.[1]
To give you a short translation of these two lines from Horace's Art of
Poetry, which I have chosen for my neck-verse, before I proceed to my
speech, you will find they fall naturally into this sense:
For poets who can't tell [high] rocks from stones,
The rope, the hangman, and the gallows groans.
I was born in a fen near the foot of Mount Parnassus, commonly called the
Logwood Bog. My mother, whose name was Stanza, conceived me in a dream,
and was delivered of me in her sleep. Her dream was, that Apollo, in the
shape of a gander, with a prodigious long bill, had embraced her; upon
which she consulted the Oracle of Delphos, and the following answer was
made:
You'll have a gosling, call it Dan,
And do not make your goose a swan.
'Tis true, because the God of Wit
To get him in that shape thought fit,
He'll have some glowworm sparks of it.
Venture you may to turn him loose,
But let it be to another goose.
The time will come, the fatal time,
When he shall dare a swan to rhyme;
The tow'ring swan comes sousing down,
And breaks his pinions, cracks his crown.
From that sad time, and sad disaster,
He'll be a lame, crack'd poetaster.
At length for stealing rhymes and triplets,
He'll be content to hang in giblets.
You see now, Gentlemen, this is fatally and literally come to pass; for
it was my misfortune to engage with that Pindar of the times, Tom
Sheridan, who did so confound me by sousing on my crown, and did so
batter my pinions, that I was forced to make use of borrowed wings,
though my false accusers have deposed that I stole my feathers from
Hopkins, Sternhold, Silvester, Ogilby, Durfey, etc., for which I now
forgive them and all the world. I die a poet; and this ladder shall be my
Gradus ad Parnassum; and I hope the critics will have mercy on my works.
Then lo, I mount as slowly as I sung,
And then I'll make a line for every rung;[2]
There's nine, I see,—the Muses, too, are nine.
Who would refuse to die a death like mine!
1. Thou first rung, Clio, celebrate my name;
2. Euterp, in tragic numbers do the same.
3. This rung, I see, Terpsichore's thy flute;
4. Erato, sing me to the Gods; ah, do't:
5. Thalia, don't make me a comedy;
6. Urania, raise me tow'rds the starry sky:
7. Calliope, to ballad-strains descend,
8. And Polyhymnia, tune them for your friend;
9. So shall Melpomene mourn my fatal end.
POOR DAN JACKSON.
[Footnote 1: A variation from:
"mediocribus esse poetis
Non homines, non di, non concessere columnae."
Epist. ad Pisones.—W. E. B.]
[Footnote 2: The Yorkshire term for the rounds or steps of a ladder;
still used in every part of Ireland.—Scott.]

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TO THE REV. DANIEL JACKSON TO BE HUMBLY PRESENTED BY MR. SHERIDAN IN PERSON, WITH RESPECT, CARE, AND SPEED. TO BE DELIVERED BY AND WITH MR. SHERIDAN

DEAR DAN,
Here I return my trust, nor ask
One penny for remittance;
If I have well perform'd my task,
Pray send me an acquittance.
Too long I bore this weighty pack,
As Hercules the sky;
Now take him you, Dan Atlas, back,
Let me be stander-by.
Not all the witty things you speak
In compass of a day,
Not half the puns you make a-week,
Should bribe his longer stay.
With me you left him out at nurse,
Yet are you not my debtor;
For, as he hardly can be worse,
I ne'er could make him better.
He rhymes and puns, and puns and rhymes,
Just as he did before;
And, when he's lash'd a hundred times,
He rhymes and puns the more.
When rods are laid on school-boys' bums,
The more they frisk and skip:
The school-boys' top but louder hums
The more they use the whip.
Thus, a lean beast beneath a load
(A beast of Irish breed)
Will, in a tedious dirty road,
Outgo the prancing steed.
You knock him down and down in vain,
And lay him flat before ye,
For soon as he gets up again,
He'll strut, and cry, Victoria!
At every stroke of mine, he fell,
'Tis true he roar'd and cried;
But his impenetrable shell
Could feel no harm beside.
The tortoise thus, with motion slow,
Will clamber up a wall;
Yet, senseless to the hardest blow,
Gets nothing but a fall.
Dear Dan, then, why should you, or I,
Attack his pericrany?
And, since it is in vain to try,
We'll send him to Delany.

POSTSCRIPT
Lean Tom, when I saw him last week on his horse awry,
Threaten'd loudly to turn me to stone with his sorcery,
But, I think, little Dan, that in spite of what our foe says,
He will find I read Ovid and his Metamorphoses,
For omitting the first (where I make a comparison,
With a sort of allusion to Putland or Harrison)
Yet, by my description, you'll find he in short is
A pack and a garran, a top and a tortoise.
So I hope from henceforward you ne'er will ask, can I maul
This teasing, conceited, rude, insolent animal?
And, if this rebuke might turn to his benefit,
(For I pity the man) I should be glad then of it.

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