Thus the deluded bankrupt raves, Puts all upon a desperate bet; Then plunges in the Southern waves, Dipt over head and ears--in debt. So, by a calenture misled, The mariner with rapture sees, On the smooth ocean's azure bed, Enamell'd fields and verdant trees: With eager haste he longs to rove In that fantastic scene, and thinks It must be some enchanted grove; And in he leaps, and down he sinks. Five hundred chariots just bespoke, Are sunk in these devouring waves, The horses drown'd, the harness broke, And here the owners find their graves. Like Pharaoh, by directors led, They with their spoils went safe before; His chariots, tumbling out the dead, Lay shatter'd on the Red Sea shore. Raised up on Hope's aspiring plumes, The young adventurer o'er the deep An eagle's flight and state assumes, And scorns the middle way to keep. On paper wings he takes his flight, With wax the father bound them fast; The wax is melted by the height, And down the towering boy is cast. A moralist might here explain The rashness of the Cretan youth;[1] Describe his fall into the main, And from a fable form a truth. His wings are his paternal rent, He melts the wax at every flame; His credit sunk, his money spent, In Southern Seas he leaves his name. Inform us, you that best can tell, Why in that dangerous gulf profound, Where hundreds and where thousands fell, Fools chiefly float, the wise are drown'd? So have I seen from Severn's brink A flock of geese jump down together; Swim where the bird of Jove would sink, And, swimming, never wet a feather. But, I affirm, 'tis false in fact, Directors better knew their tools; We see the nation's credit crack'd, Each knave has made a thousand fools. One fool may from another win, And then get off with money stored; But, if a sharper once comes in, He throws it all, and sweeps the board. As fishes on each other prey, The great ones swallowing up the small, So fares it in the Southern Sea; The whale directors eat up all. When stock is high, they come between, Making by second-hand their offers; Then cunningly retire unseen, With each a million in his coffers. So, when upon a moonshine night, An ass was drinking at a stream, A cloud arose, and stopt the light, By intercepting every beam: The day of judgment will be soon, Cries out a sage among the crowd; An ass has swallow'd up the moon! The moon lay safe behind the cloud. Each poor subscriber to the sea Sinks down at once, and there he lies; Directors fall as well as they, Their fall is but a trick to rise. So fishes, rising from the main, Can soar with moisten'd wings on high; The moisture dried, they sink again, And dip their fins again to fly. Undone at play, the female troops Come here their losses to retrieve; Ride o'er the waves in spacious hoops, Like Lapland witches in a sieve.