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Title: Vanbrugh's House
Author: Jonathan Swift [
More Titles by Swift]
BUILT FROM THE RUINS OF WHITEHALL THAT WAS BURNT, 1703
In times of old, when Time was young,
And poets their own verses sung,
A verse would draw a stone or beam,
That now would overload a team;
Lead 'em a dance of many a mile,
Then rear 'em to a goodly pile.
Each number had its diff'rent power;
Heroic strains could build a tower;
Sonnets and elegies to Chloris,
Might raise a house about two stories;
A lyric ode would slate; a catch
Would tile; an epigram would thatch.
Now Poets feel this art is lost,
Both to their own and landlord's cost.
Not one of all the tuneful throng
Can hire a lodging for a song.
For Jove consider'd well the case,
That poets were a numerous race;
And if they all had power to build,
The earth would very soon be fill'd:
Materials would be quickly spent,
And houses would not give a rent.
The God of Wealth was therefore made
Sole patron of the building trade;
Leaving to wits the spacious air,
With license to build castles there:
In right whereof their old pretence
To lodge in garrets comes from thence.
There is a worm by Phoebus bred,
By leaves of mulberry is fed,
Which unprovided where to dwell,
Conforms itself to weave a cell;
Then curious hands this texture take,
And for themselves fine garments make.
Meantime a pair of awkward things
Grow to his back instead of wings;
He flutters when he thinks he flies,
Then sheds about his spawn and dies.
Just such an insect of the age
Is he that scribbles for the stage;
His birth he does from Phoebus raise,
And feeds upon imagin'd bays;
Throws all his wit and hours away
In twisting up an ill spun Play:
This gives him lodging and provides
A stock of tawdry shift besides.
With the unravell'd shreds of which
The under wits adorn their speech:
And now he spreads his little fans,
(For all the Muses Geese are Swans)
And borne on Fancy's pinions, thinks
He soars sublimest when he sinks:
But scatt'ring round his fly-blows, dies;
Whence broods of insect-poets rise.
Premising thus, in modern way,
The greater part I have to say;
Sing, Muse, the house of Poet Van,
In higher strain than we began.
Van (for 'tis fit the reader know it)
Is both a Herald and a Poet;
No wonder then if nicely skill'd
In each capacity to build.
As Herald, he can in a day
Repair a house gone to decay;
Or by achievements, arms, device,
Erect a new one in a trice;
And poets, if they had their due,
By ancient right are builders too:
This made him to Apollo pray
For leave to build--the poets way.
His prayer was granted, for the God
Consented with the usual nod.
After hard throes of many a day
Van was delivered of a play,
Which in due time brought forth a house,
Just as the mountain did the mouse.
One story high, one postern door,
And one small chamber on a floor,
Born like a phoenix from the flame:
But neither bulk nor shape the same;
As animals of largest size
Corrupt to maggots, worms, and flies;
A type of modern wit and style,
The rubbish of an ancient pile;
So chemists boast they have a power,
From the dead ashes of a flower
Some faint resemblance to produce,
But not the virtue, taste, nor juice.
So modern rhymers strive to blast
The poetry of ages past;
Which, having wisely overthrown,
They from its ruins build their own.
[The end]
Jonathan Swift's poem: Vanbrugh's House
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