WELCOME, thrice welcome to thy native place! | |
What, touch me not? what, shun a wife’s embrace? | |
Have I for this thy tedious absence borne, | |
And waked, and wish’d whole nights for thy return? | |
In five long years I took no second spouse; | 5 |
What Redriff wife so long hath kept her vows? | |
Your eyes, your nose, inconstancy betray; | |
Your nose you stop, your eyes you turn away. | |
’T is said, that thou shouldst ‘cleave unto thy wife;’ | |
Once thou didst cleave, and I could cleave for life. | 10 |
Hear, and relent! hark how thy children moan! | |
Be kind at least to these; they are thy own: | |
Behold, and count them all; secure to find | |
The honest number that you left behind. | |
See how they bat thee with their pretty paws: | 15 |
Why start you? are they snakes? or have they claws? | |
Thy Christian seed, our mutual flesh and bone: | |
Be kind at least to these; they are thy own. | |
Biddel, like thee, might farthest India rove; | |
He changed his country, but retain’d his love. | 20 |
There ’s Captain Pannel, absent half his life, | |
Comes back, and is the kinder to his wife; | |
Yet Pannel’s wife is brown compared to me, | |
And Mrs. Biddel sure is fifty-three. | |
Not touch me! never neighbour call’d me slut! | 25 |
Was Flimnap’s dame more sweet in Lilliput? | |
I ’ve no red hair to breathe an odious fume; | |
At least thy Consort’s cleaner than thy Groom. | |
Why then that dirty stable-boy thy care? | |
What mean those visits to the Sorrel Mare? | 30 |
Say, by what witchcraft, or what demon led, | |
Preferr’st thou litter to the marriage-bed? | |
Some say the Devil himself is in that mare: | |
If so, our Dean shall drive him forth by prayer. | |
Some think you mad, some think you are possess’d, | 35 |
That Bedlam and clean straw will suit you best. | |
Vain means, alas, this frenzy to appease! | |
That straw, that straw would heighten the disease. | |
My bed (the scene of all our former joys, | |
Witness two lovely girls, two lovely boys) | 40 |
Alone I press: in dreams I call my dear, | |
I stretch my hand; no Gulliver is there! | |
I wake, I rise, and shiv’ring with the frost | |
Search all the house; my Gulliver is lost! | |
Forth in the street I rush with frantic cries; | 45 |
The windows open, all the neighbours rise: | |
‘Where sleeps my Gulliver? O tell me where.’ | |
The neighbours answer, ‘With the Sorrel Mare.’ | |
At early morn I to the market haste | |
(Studious in every thing to please thy taste); | 50 |
A curious fowl and ’sparagus I chose | |
(For I remember’d you were fond of those); | |
Three shillings cost the first, the last seven groats; | |
Sullen you turn from both, and call for oats. | |
Others bring goods and treasure to their houses, | 55 |
Something to deck their pretty babes and spouses: | |
My only token was a cup like horn, | |
That ’s made of nothing but a lady’s corn. | |
’T is not for that I grieve; O, ’t is to see | |
The Groom and Sorrel Mare preferr’d to me! | 60 |
These, for some moments when you deign to quit, | |
And at due distance sweet discourse admit, | |
’T is all my pleasure thy past toil to know; | |
For pleas’d remembrance builds delight on woe. | |
At ev’ry danger pants thy consort’s breast, | 65 |
And gaping infants squall to hear the rest. | |
How did I tremble, when by thousands bound, | |
I saw thee stretch’d on Lilliputian ground! | |
When scaling armies climb’d up every part, | |
Each step they trod I felt upon my heart. | 70 |
But when thy torrent quench’d the dreadful blaze, | |
King, Queen, and Nation staring with amaze, | |
Full in my view how all my husband came; | |
And what extinguish’d theirs increas’d my flame. | |
Those spectacles, ordain’d thine eyes to save, | 75 |
Were once my present; love that armour gave. | |
How did I mourn at Bolgolam’s decree! | |
For when he sign’d thy death, he sentenc’d me. | |
When folks might see thee all the country round | |
For sixpence, I ’d have giv’n a thousand pound. | 80 |
Lord! when the giant babe that head of thine | |
Got in his mouth, my heart was up in mine! | |
When in the marrow bone I see thee ramm’d, | |
Or on the housetop by the monkey cramm’d, | |
The piteous images renew my pain, | 85 |
And all thy dangers I weep o’er again. | |
But on the maiden’s nipple when you rid, | |
Pray Heav’n, ’t was all a wanton maiden did! | |
Glumdalclitch, too! with thee I mourn her case, | |
Heaven guard the gentle girl from all disgrace! | 90 |
O may the king that one neglect forgive, | |
And pardon her the fault by which I live! | |
Was there no other way to set him free? | |
My life, alas! I fear prov’d death to thee. | |
O teach me, dear, new words to speak my flame; | 95 |
Teach me to woo thee by thy best lov’d name! | |
Whether the style of Grildrig please thee most, | |
So call’d on Brobdingnag’s stupendous coast, | |
When on the monarch’s ample hand you sate, | |
And halloo’d in his ear intrigues of state; | 100 |
Or Quinbus Flestrin more endearment brings, | |
When like a mountain you look’d down on kings: | |
If ducal Nardac, Lilliputian peer, | |
Or Glumglum’s humbler title soothe thy ear: | |
Nay, would kind Jove my organs so dispose, | 105 |
To hymn harmonious Houyhnhnm thro’ the nose, | |
I ’d call thee Houyhnhnm, that high sounding name | |
Thy children’s noses all should twang the same; | |
So might I find my loving spouse of course | |
Endued with all the virtues of a horse. | 110 |
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