Hail, human compound quadrifarious, Invincible as wight Briareus![2] Hail! doubly-doubled mighty merry one, Stronger than triple-bodied Geryon![3] O may your vastness deign t' excuse The praises of a puny Muse, Unable, in her utmost flight, To reach thy huge colossian height! T' attempt to write like thee were frantic, Whose lines are, like thyself, gigantic. Yet let me bless, in humbler strain, Thy vast, thy bold Cambysian[4] vein, Pour'd out t' enrich thy native isle, As Egypt wont to be with Nile. O, how I joy to see thee wander, In many a winding loose meander, In circling mazes, smooth and supple, And ending in a clink quadruple; Loud, yet agreeable withal, Like rivers rattling in their fall! Thine, sure, is poetry divine, Where wit and majesty combine; Where every line, as huge as seven, If stretch'd in length, would reach to Heaven: Here all comparing would be slandering, The least is more than Alexandrine. Against thy verse Time sees with pain, He whets his envious scythe in vain; For though from thee he much may pare, Yet much thou still wilt have to spare. Thou hast alone the skill to feast With Roman elegance of taste, Who hast of rhymes as vast resources As Pompey's caterer of courses. O thou, of all the Nine inspired! My languid soul, with teaching tired, How is it raptured, when it thinks Of thy harmonious set of chinks; Each answering each in various rhymes, Like echo to St. Patrick's chimes! Thy Muse, majestic in her rage, Moves like Statira[5] on the stage; And scarcely can one page sustain The length of such a flowing train: Her train of variegated dye Shows like Thaumantia's[6] in the sky; Alike they glow, alike they please, Alike imprest by Phoebus' rays. Thy verse--(Ye Gods! I cannot bear it) To what, to what shall I compare it? 'Tis like, what I have oft heard spoke on, The famous statue of Laocoon. 'Tis like,--O yes, 'tis very like it, The long, long string, with which you fly kite. 'Tis like what you, and one or two more, Roar to your Echo[7] in good humour; And every couplet thou hast writ Concludes with Rhattah-whittah-whit.[8] [Footnote 1: These were written all in circles, one within another, as appears from the observations in the following poem by Dr. Swift.--_F._] [Footnote 2: The hundred-armed giant, "centumgeminus Briareus," Virg., "Aen.," vi, 287; also called Aegaeon, "centum cui brachia dicunt," Virg., "Aen.," x, 565; see Heyne's notes.--_W. E. B._] [Footnote 3: A mythic king, having three bodies, whose arms were carried off by Hercules.--Lucr., v, 28, and Munro's note; Virg. "Aen.," vii, 662, and viii, 202: "maxumus ultor Tergemini nece Geryonae spoliisque superbus Alcides aderat taurosque hac victor agebat Ingentis, vallemque boves amnemque tenebant."--_W. E. B._] [Footnote 4: Cambyses, the warrior king of Persia, whose name is the emblem of bravado.--_W. E. B._]