"You must, Sir Jeff'ry, often see
The strange effects of vanity;
Another you will find in me. | } |
You'll scarce believe as I relate
The folly which I now must state:
That I've been such a silly elf
I now can scarce believe myself:
And I could wish I dare conceal
What duty bids me to reveal.
—Did not calm prudence whisper now
To my existing state to bow,
To tell it all to such a friend
As I had found in Doctor Bend, |
Or a quick pilgrimage to make
To Worthy-Hall beside the Lake,
Where, for dear Doctor Syntax' sake, | } |
The troubled Foundling would receive
All that protecting care could give.
This was the counsel Make-peace gave,
A lawyer who was not a knave;
Who would advise without a fee,
And felt for human misery.
—This Reason said in lessons strong,
As I pac'd my still way along,
When the dull sound of my own feet
And Philomela's sonnet sweet
Did on the gen'ral silence break,
And seem'd to keep the night awake.
Then Vanity sat pick-a-pack
Perch'd on the hump upon my back,
And whisper'd into either ear,
'Such humbling counsels do not hear.
Where poor Quæ Genus has been known
His alter'd form must ne'er be shown:
With this sad shape he never can
Hold himself forth a gentleman:
No art can furnish you a cloak
To hide from pity or from joke.
If passing on a river's ridge,
Or, perchance lolling o'er a bridge,
You gaze upon the stream below
Whose crystal mirror's seen to flow,
Would not the picture meet your eye
Of your own sad deformity?
At Oxford you would be the talk
Of the High-street or Christ-Church-walk,
While many quizzing fools look round
To view your rising back begown'd.
—How would you bear the wond'ring ken
Of the good folk of Sommerden,
While they with pitying looks lament
The once straight form, but now so bent!
Then leave the world where you have been,
Where I would be no longer seen,
Nor let the jealous eye compare,
What you once was with what you are. |
Might I advise, I'd sooner die
Unknown, in humble privacy,
Again,' said whisp'ring vanity, | } |
'Than e'er appear where I was known
For graces which were then my own,
That pity or that scorn might point
At such a form, so out of joint.' |
| |
"I need not say how many days
I sought the bye and secret ways, |
For ever list'ning to the tongue
That whisper'd soft and pleaded strong,
To set each better feeling wrong. | } |
Hence I resign'd myself to chance,
Left fortune, friends, inheritance,
And madly felt that I was hurl'd
Thus mark'd to wander through the world.
To snatch at, and at once receive,
Whate'er the world might chance to give. |
'Twas not a whimsy of the brain,
That did the idle scheme sustain,
'Twas something which I can't explain. | } |
All feeling center'd in the pack
That had thus risen on my back;
And as I felt the burden there,
It seem'd the seat of ev'ry care,
Of ev'ry painful thought brimfull,
Like Old Pandora's Ridicule. |
But as every single note
Which I from Gripe-all's grasp had got,
Was still secure within my coat, | } |
I had sufficient means and more
To travel all the kingdom o'er |
With staff in hand, and well-shod feet,
And oil'd umbrella form'd to meet
The show'rs that might my passage greet. | } |
One pocket did a bible hold,
The other held the story told,
Which good Æneas did rehearse
To Dido, in immortal verse;
While from a loop before descended
A flute that oft my hours befriended:
Thus I with verse, with prose or fist,
Was scholar, fiddler, methodist.
As fit occasion might demand,
I could let Scripture Phrase off-hand,
Or fine re-sounding verses quote,
Or play a tune in lively note.
Thus qualified to cut and carve,
I need not fear that I should starve;
While in some future lucky stage
Of my uncertain pilgrimage,
I might have hopes, remov'd from strife,
To be a fixture for my life. |