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The Poetry of Jonathan Swift
| The poems on this page epitomise the mordant humour and bitter spirit of much of Swift's poetry. The first example is a rambuctious version of an Irish praise-poem, written in honour of a Gaelic chief by his loyal bard or fili. For Swift, the alcoholic antics of the Irish were intrinsically ignoble but not unlovable, as the comic brio of his verses show. The second is in a darker vein. Here the satire is directed against the cosmetic practices of women whom he imagines disrobing to reveal the putrid underside of feminine allure. Swift's hatred of sexuality (embodied by women in the cultural system of the day) is a pronounced feature of his mentality and ultimately a scar upon his spirit. Its juncture with his rational misanthropy - the hatred of human kind for good political reasons - is, by contrast, a large ingredient in the incomparable satirical force of Gulliver's Travels. |
| Self-esteem: ‘Fair Liberty was all his cry; / For her he was prepared to die. / For her he boldly stood alone, / For her he oft exposed his own.’ (“Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift.”) |
Epitaph (by himself:) ‘Hic depositum est Corpus / IONATHAN SWIFT S.T.D. / Hujus Ecclesiae Cathedralis/Decani/Ubi saeva Indignatio /Ulterius / Cor lacerare nequit. / Abi Viator / Et imitare, si poteris, / Strenuum pro virili / Libertatis Vindicatorem / Obiit 190 Die Mensis Octobris / A.D. Anno Aetatis 78
Cf. W. B. Yeats's translation-version: ‘Swift has sailed into his rest; / Savage indignation there / Cannot lacerate his breast. / Imitate him if you dare, / World-besotted traveller; he / Served human liberty.’ |
| “O’Rourke’s Feast֨ (Swift’s translation of the "Pléaráca na Ruarcach" of Hugh MacGauran) |
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‘Come harper, strike up, but first by your Favour
Boy, give us a Cup, ay, this has some Savour.
O’Rourk’s jolly Boys, ne’er dreamt of the Matter
’Till roused by the Noise, and Musical Clatter
They bounce from their Nest, no longer will tarry
They rise ready drest, without one Ave Mary.
They dance in a round, cuting Capers and ramping a
Mercy the Ground did not burst with their Stamping
The Floor is all wet, with Leaps and with
Jumps while the water and Sweat,
Splish Splash in their Pumps
[...]
Good Lord, what a sight, after all their good Chear
for people to fight in the midst of their Beer
They rise from the Feast, and hot are their Brains
A Cubit at Least, the Length of their Skeans
What Stabs and what Cuts, what Clatt’ring of Sticks
What Strokes on Guts, what bastings and kicks.
With Cudgels of Oak, well harden’d in Flame
An hundred heads broke, an hundred struck lame
You Churl, I’ll maintain, my Father built Lusk
The Castle of Slane and Carrick Drumrusk
The Earl of Kildare, and Moynalta his brother
As great as they are, I was nurs’d by their Mother
Ask that of old Madam, She’ll tell you who’s who
So far up as Adam, She knows it is true
Come down with that Beam, if Cudgells are scarce
A Blow on the Weam, and a kick on the Arse.’
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| "A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed (Written for the Honour of the Fair Sex") |
Corinna, pride of Drury-lane,
For whom no shepherd sighs in vain;
Never did Covent-garden boast
So bright a batter’d, strolling toast!
No drunken rake to pick her up,
No cellar where on tick to sup;
Returning at the midnight hour;
Four stories climbing to her bower;
Then, seated on a three-legg’d chair,
Takes off her artificial hair,
Now picking out a crystal eye,
She wipes it clean, and lays it by.
Her eye-brows from a mouse’s hide
Stuck on with art on either side,
Pulls off with care, and first displays ’em,
Then in a play-book smoothly lays ’em.
Now dextrously her plumpers draws,
That serve to fill her hollow jaws.
Untwists a wire and from her gums
A set of teeth completely comes.
Pulls out the rags contriv’d to prop
Her flabby dugs, and down they drop.
Proceeding on, the lovely Goddess
Unlaces next her steel-ribb’d bodice,
Which, by the operator’s skill,
Press down the lumps, the hollows fill.
Up hoes her hand, and off she slips
The bolsters that supply her hips.
With gentlest touch she next explores
Her shankers, issues, running sores;
Effects of many a sad disaster,
And then to each applies a plaster:
But must, before she goes to bed,
Rub off the daubs of white and red,
And smooth the furrows in her front
With greasy paper stuck upon’t.
She takes a bolus e’er she sleeps;
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And then between two blankets creeps.
With pains of love tormented lies;
Or, if she chance to close her eyes,
Of Bridewell and the Compter dreams,
And feels the lash, and faintly screams;
Or, by a faithless bully drawn,
At some hedge-tavern lies in pawn;
Or to Jamaica seems transported
Alone, and by no planter courted;
Or, near Fleet-ditch’s oozy brinks,
Surrounded with a hundred stinks,
Belated, seems on watch to lie,
And snap some cully passing by;
Or, struck with fear, her fancy runs
On watchmen, constables and duns,
From whom she meets with frequent rubs;
But, never from religious clubs,
Whose favour she is sure to find,
Because she pays them all in kind.
Corinna wakes. A dreadful sight!
Behold the ruins of the night!
A wicked rat her plaster stole,
Half eat, and dragged it to his hole.
The crystal eye, alas! was miss’d;
And puss had on her plumpers p -- ss’d.
A pigeon pick’d her issue-peas;
And Shock her tresses fill’d with fleas.
The nymph, tho’ in this mangled plight,
Must ev’ry morn her limbs unite.
But how shall I describe her arts
To re-collect the scatter’d parts?
Or show the anguish, toil, and pain,
Of gathering up herself again?
The bashful Muse will never bear
In such a scene to interfere.
Corinna in the morning dizen’d,
Who sees, will spew; who smells, be poison’d.’ |
| (Quoted in Andrew Carpenter, ‘Changing Views of Irish Musical and Literary Culture in Eighteenth-centry Anglo-Irish Literature’, Michael Kenneally, ed., Irish Literature and Culture, Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1992, p.13.) |
| “On the Death of Dr. Swift [by himself]” |
'The Dean did by his pen defeat
An infamous destructive cheat
Taught fools their interest how to know,
And gave them arms to ward the blow.
Envy has owned it his own doing,
To save the hapless land from ruin’
[...]
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'He gave the little that he had
To build a house for fools and mad;
And shew'd by one satiric touch
No nation needed it so much.
That kingdom he had left his debtor,
I wish it soon may have a better.' |
| See further examples in RICORSO Library, “Irish Classics” [infra] (Password protected). |
ENG105C1A: University of Ulster |