When foes are o'ercome, we preserve them from slaughter, To be hewers of wood, and drawers of water. Now, although to draw water is not very good, Yet we all should rejoice to be hewers of Wood. I own it has often provoked me to mutter, That a rogue so obscure should make such a clutter; But ancient philosophers wisely remark, That old rotten wood will shine in the dark. The Heathens, we read, had gods made of wood, Who could do them no harm, if they did them no good; But this idol Wood may do us great evil, Their gods were of wood, but our Wood is the devil. To cut down fine wood is a very bad thing; And yet we all know much gold it will bring: Then, if cutting down wood brings money good store Our money to keep, let us cut down one more. Now hear an old tale. There anciently stood (I forget in what church) an image of wood; Concerning this image, there went a prediction, It would burn a whole forest; nor was it a fiction. 'Twas cut into fagots and put to the flame, To burn an old friar, one Forest by name, My tale is a wise one, if well understood: Find you but the Friar; and I'll find the Wood. I hear, among scholars there is a great doubt, From what kind of tree this Wood was hewn out, Teague made a good pun by a brogue in his speech: And said, "By my shoul, he's the son of a BEECH." Some call him a thorn, the curse of the nation, As thorns were design'd to be from the creation. Some think him cut out from the poisonous yew, Beneath whose ill shade no plant ever grew. Some say he’s a birch, a thought very odd; For none but a dunce would come under his rod. But I'll tell the secret; and pray do not blab: He is an old stump, cut out of a crab; And England has put this crab to a hard use, To cudgel our bones, and for drink give us ver-juice; And therefore his witnesses justly may boast, That none are more properly knights of the post, But here Mr. Wood complains that we mock, Though he may be a blockhead, he's no real block. He can eat, drink, and sleep; now and then for a friend He'll not be too proud an old kettle to mend; He can lie like a courtier, and think it no scorn, When gold’s to be got, to forswear and suborn. He can rap his own raps[1] and has the true sapience, To turn a good penny to twenty bad halfpence. Then in spite of your sophistry, honest Will Wood Is a man of this world, all true flesh and blood; So you are but in jest, and you will not, I hope, Unman the poor knave for the sake of a trope. 'Tis a metaphor known to every plain thinker, Just as when we say, the devil's a tinker, Which cannot, in literal sense be made good, Unless by the devil we mean Mr. Wood. But some will object that the devil oft spoke, In heathenish times, from the trunk of an oak; And since we must grant there never were known More heathenish times, than those of our own; Perhaps you will say, 'tis the devil that puts The words in Wood's mouth, or speaks from his guts: And then your old arguments still will return;