Thee, son of Jove! whose sceptre was confess’d, Where fair Æolia springs from Tethys’ breast; Thence on Olympus, ’mid celestials placed, GOD OF THE WINDS, and Ether’s boundless waste— Thee I invoke! Oh _puff_ my bold design, Prompt the bright thought, and swell th’ harmonious line Uphold my pinions, and my verse inspire With Winsor’s {74} patent gas, or wind of fire, In whose pure blaze thy embryo form enroll’d, The dark enlightens, and enchafes the cold. But, while I court thy gifts, be mine to shun The deprecated prize Ulysses won; Who, sailing homeward from thy breezy shore, The prison’d winds in skins of parchment bore. Speeds the fleet bark till o’er the billowy green The azure heights of Ithaca are seen; But while with favouring gales her way she wins, His curious comrades ope the mystic skins; When, lo! the rescued winds, with boisterous sweep, Roar to the clouds and lash the rocking deep; Heaves the smote vessel in the howling blast, Splits the stretch’d sail, and cracks the tottering mast. Launch’d on a plank, the buoyant hero rides Where ebon Afric stems the sable tides, While his duck’d comrades o’er the ocean fly, And sleep not in the whole skins they untie. So, when to raise the wind some lawyer tries, Mysterious skins of parchment meet our eyes; On speeds the smiling suit—“Pleas of our Lord The King” shine sable on the wide record; Nods the prunella’d bar, attorneys smile, And syren jurors flatter to beguile; Till stript—nonsuited—he is doom’d to toss In legal shipwreck and redeemless loss! Lucky if, like Ulysses, he can keep His head above the waters of the deep. Æolian monarch! Emperor of Puffs! We modern sailors dread not thy rebuffs; See to thy golden shore promiscuous come Quacks for the lame, the blind, the deaf, the dumb; Fools are their bankers—a prolific line, And every mortal malady’s a mine. Each sly Sangrado, with his poisonous pill, Flies to the printer’s devil with his bill, Whose Midas touch can gild his ass’s ears, And load a knave with folly’s rich arrears. And lo! a second miracle is thine, For sloe-juice water stands transformed to wine. Where Day and Martin’s patent blacking roll’d, Burst from the vase Pactolian streams of gold; Laugh the sly wizards, glorying in their stealth, Quit the black art, and loll in lazy wealth. See Britain’s Algerines, the lottery fry, Win annual tribute by the annual lie! Aided by thee—but whither do I stray?— Court, city, borough, own thy sovereign sway; An age of puffs an age of gold succeeds, And windy bubbles are the spawn it breeds.