RIGHT rigorous, and so forth! Humbled
By cares and mourning, tost and tumbled,
Before your Ladyships, Tom Fool,
Knowing above the rest you rule,
Most lamentably sets his case
With a bold heart and saucy face.
Sans shoes or stocking, coat or breeches,
You see him now, most mighty witches,
His body worn like an old farthing,
The angry spirit just a-parting,
His credit rotten, and his purse
As empty as a cobbler’s curse;
His Poems, too, unsold—that’s worse!
In short, between confounded crosses,
Patrons all vexed and former losses,
Sure as a gun he cannot fail,
Next week to warble in a jail,
Which jail to folks not very sanguine
Is just as good or worse than hanging;
Though in the first vain hopes flatter,
But Hope’s quite strangled by the latter.
Thus is a poor rhyming rascal treated,
Fairly, or rather fouly cheated
Of all the goods from wit accruing,
(Wit that’s synonomous with ruin).
Then take it in your head-piece, Ladies,
To set up a poor Bard, whose trade is
Low fallen enough in conscience; pity
The maker of this magic ditty;
And turn your wheel once more in haste
To see him on the summit placed,
For well you wot that woes (’od rot ’em)
Have long since stretched him at the bottom,
Where he who erst fine lyrics gabbled
With mire and filth was sorely dabbled,
So pitifully pelted, that
He looks like any drowned rat.
O Justice, Justice, take his part!
O lift him on thy lofty Cart
Magnific Fame! And let Fat Plenty
Marry one Poet out of Twenty!