The Soldier that has Seen Service. A Sketch from Nature (published 1788)
From Calpe’s rock, with loss of leg,
Reduced from port to port to beg,
See the conquering hero comes:
An ass’s panniers bear his all,
Two sickly brats that fret and bawl,
And suck, for want of food, their thumbs.
The drooping mother follows near,
Now heaves a sigh, now drops a tear,
And casts the fond, maternal gaze;
Mars bluntly strives to cheat his dame,
Reminds her of his stock of fame,
And bids her hope for better days.
“Alas,” she cries, “and what is fame?
An empty sound, not worth a name.
Doth fame the needful loaf supply?
I’d give up all the fame you boast
For one fair joint of boiled or roast,
Or griskin fat or mutton-pie.
“Was it for this we left our home
About the troubled world to roam,
To conquer Spain and want a meal?
Ah! had we never bled for those
Who see our still increasing woes,
And comfort's cup refuse to deal!”
Mars owns ’tis true, and cries, “Too late
’Tis now for us to carp at fate,
Or call the moment back that’s flown.
Let shame at length the state o’erwhelm,
That knows he fought to save the realm,
And lets the wounded soldier moan.”
“Amen,” she cries; Mars wipes her tear,
Prepares some better theme to cheer,
Of battles, songs or pleasures gone;
From knapsack takes his little store,
Hoping that time will make it more;
Then parts his crust and hobbles on.
from “The Comparison” (published 1729)
Let dirty streets be paved with flow’ry green
And, through the murky fog that hangs between,
Let an unclouded sun and azure skies be seen;
Where busy crowds pressed on and thronged the way,
Let groves and forests rise as thick as they;
Let cascades play and streams come murm’ring down,
Where noisy coaches rattled o’er the town;
Let stinking kennels be transformed to brooks,
Coxcombs (an easy change) to jays and rooks;
Prating coquets be turned to cackling geese,
And mobs huzzaing into buzzing bees;
Let birds in concert serenade each street,
Cows low at the Exchange and sheep at Guildhall bleat;
Let thrushes echo round from square to square,
And blackbirds whistle through each thoroughfare;
Let cuckoos “Cuckoo” cry and oxen bellow,
Where “Mackerel new” were cried and “Medlars mellow”;
Where “Small-coal” murmured in a hollow note,
Let ravens croak and mutter through their throat;
Where “Chimney-sweep” in shriller accents rung,
Let piping shepherds tune their rural song;
Where lamps and torches ill supplied the night,
Let Cynthia and the heavenly lamps give light;
Let owls and bitterns sound their midnight ditty,
Where watchmen’s thumps resounded o’er the city,
Ere smoky towns shall vie with rural plains,
Or city cockneys rival country swains.
Let cars, sedans and chairs, and rolling sledges,
Transfixed, sprout up in shrubs and quickset hedges;
Let towers be metamorphosed into trees,
And smoke salute them in a fragrant breeze;
In groups of lofty rocks let Paul’s be reared,
Such as to Indian Kings it once appeared,
And the wide subterranean vault below
Be changed to one which nature has made so,
Or in a mountain let the fabric end,
In trees its stately pinnacles ascend,
The spacious dome spread out in lofty green,
And sportive squirrels on the fanes be seen;
Let rivlets gently by the side stream down,
And be a general conduit for the town;
Through every street descending fountains glide,
And form a murmuring current in Cheapside;
Let noise no more disturb fair Thames's shore,
Nor voices louder than her waters roar;
Her crowded banks be dressed with sportive willows,
Shading the shore and beck'ning to the billows;
Nor oars and scullers on her banks resound,
But boats, to ploughshares turned, divide the ground,
While all the noisy crowd that haunt the Strand
No longer plough the waves but plough the land;
Where jobbers with their airy bubbles bawl,
Let empty echoes to each other call;
In fine, let stalls and shops no longer stink,
And beaux (a painful task!) begin to think;
Let thy eternal din, O London! cease,
And all thy streets and palaces be peace,
Ere smoky towns shall vie with rural plains,
And city cockneys rival country swains.
Both poems from The New Oxford Book of Eighteenth-Century Verse
Leave a Reply