Volume Ii Part 61 (1/2)
THE SONG
A parody on the popular song beginning, ”My time, O ye Muses, was happily spent.”
My time, O ye Grattans, was happily spent, When Bacchus went with me, wherever I went; For then I did nothing but sing, laugh, and jest; Was ever a toper so merrily blest?
But now I so cross, and so peevish am grown, Because I must go to my wife back to town; To the fondling and toying of ”honey,” and ”dear,”
And the conjugal comforts of horrid small beer.
My daughter I ever was pleased to see Come fawning and begging to ride on my knee: My wife, too, was pleased, and to the child said, Come, hold in your belly, and hold up your head: But now out of humour, I with a sour look, Cry, hussy, and give her a souse with my book; And I'll give her another; for why should she play, Since my Bacchus, and gla.s.ses, and friends, are away?
Wine, what of thy delicate hue is become, That tinged our gla.s.ses with blue, like a plum?
Those bottles, those b.u.mpers, why do they not smile, While we sit carousing and drinking the while?
Ah, b.u.mpers, I see that our wine is all done, Our mirth falls of course, when our Bacchus is gone.
Then since it is so, bring me here a supply; Begone, froward wife, for I'll drink till I die.
A NEW YEAR'S GIFT FOR THE DEAN OF ST. PATRICK'S GIVEN HIM AT QUILCA. BY SHERIDAN 1723
How few can be of grandeur sure!
The high may fall, the rich be poor.
The only favourite at court, To-morrow may be Fortune's sport; For all her pleasure and her aim Is to destroy both power and fame.
Of this the Dean is an example, No instance is more plain and ample.
The world did never yet produce, For courts a man of greater use.
Nor has the world supplied as yet, With more vivacity and wit; Merry alternately and wise, To please the statesman, and advise.
Through all the last and glorious reign, Was nothing done without the Dean; The courtier's prop, the nation's pride; But now, alas! he's thrown aside; He's quite forgot, and so's the queen, As if they both had never been.
To see him now a mountaineer!
Oh! what a mighty fall is here!
From settling governments and thrones, To splitting rocks, and piling stones.
Instead of Bolingbroke and Anna, Shane Tunnally, and Bryan Granna, Oxford and Ormond he supplies, In every Irish Teague he spies: So far forgetting his old station, He seems to like their conversation, Conforming to the tatter'd rabble, He learns their Irish tongue to gabble; And, what our anger more provokes, He's pleased with their insipid jokes; Then turns and asks them who do lack a Good plug, or pipefull of tobacco.
All cry they want, to every man He gives, extravagant, a span.
Thus are they grown more fond than ever, And he is highly in their favour.
Bright Stella, Quilca's greatest pride, For them he scorns and lays aside; And Sheridan is left alone All day, to gape, and stretch, and groan; While grumbling, poor, complaining Dingley, Is left to care and trouble singly.
All o'er the mountains spreads the rumour, Both of his bounty and good humour; So that each shepherdess and swain Comes flocking here to see the Dean.
All spread around the land, you'd swear That every day we kept a fair.
My fields are brought to such a pa.s.s, I have not left a blade of gra.s.s; That all my wethers and my beeves Are slighted by the very thieves.
At night right loath to quit the park, His work just ended by the dark, With all his pioneers he comes, To make more work for whisk and brooms.
Then seated in an elbow-chair, To take a nap he does prepare; While two fair damsels from the lawns, Lull him asleep with soft cronawns.
Thus are his days in delving spent, His nights in music and content; He seems to gain by his distress, His friends are more, his honours less.