THE PLACE OF THE DAMN'D

All folks who pretend to religion and grace,
Allow there's a Hell, but dispute of the place;
But if Hell may by logical rules be defin'd,
The place of the damn'd, - I will tell you my mind.
  Wherever the damn'd do chiefly abound,
Most certainly there is Hell to be found,
Damn'd poets, damn'd critics, damn'd block-heads, damn'd knaves,
Damn'd senator brib'd, damn'd prostitute slaves;
Damn'd lawyers and judges, damn'd lords and damn'd squires,
Damn'd spies and informers, damn'd friends and damn'd liars;
Damn'd villains, corrupted in every station,
Damn'd time-serving priests all over the nation;
And into the bargain, I'll readily give you,
Damn'd ignorant prelates, and councillors privy.
Then let us no longer by these parsons be flamm'd,
For we know by these marks, the place of the damn'd;
And Hell to be sure is at Paris or Rome,
How happy for us, that it is not at home.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) 'had a marvellous ear for talk and delighted in popular eccentricities of speech'. His poetry, usually the most neglected area of his prolific output, illustrates this among many other qualities. 'He is a social and sociable poet, not one given to solitary musing,' C. H. Sisson writes in his introduction. 'What is offered to the reader is a sample which illustrates the liveliness, humour and plain-speaking of this part of the author's work.' Herbert Read pointed out in his essay on Swift, 'Goldsmith said that Swift was the first poet who dared describe nature as it is, with all its deformities, and to give exact expression to a turn of thought alike dry, sarcastic and severe.' Dr Johnson, Macaulay and Thackeray were among the writers who found Swift too ferocious and indeed coarse for their tastes, but in this century his poetry has gained an ever wider readership among those attracted by its vigour and satirical inventiveness.

This selection is edited by C. H. Sisson, the distinguished poet and translator, whose most recent work from Carcanet includes a collection of poetms, God Bless Karl Marx! and his version of Virgil's Aeneid.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

The Humble Petition of Frances Harris

Verses said to be written on the Union

Epitaph on Partridge

A Description of the Morning

A Description of a City Shower

Corinna

Horace, Lib. 2, Sat. 6

Mary the Cook-Maid's Letter to Dr Sheridan

On Stella's Birth-day

A Quiet Life, and a Good Name

Phillis, or, the Progress of Love

The Progress of Beauty

Epitaph on Demar

'Dorinda dreams...'

The description of an Irish Feast

The Journal

The Progress of Marriage

Stella's Distress (lines 1-22)

'In church your grandsire cut his throat...'

To Quilca

Advice to the Grub-Street Verse-Writers

Clever Tom Clinch Going to be Hanged

At the Sign of the Four Crosses: To the Landlord

The Furniture of a Woman's Mind

An Elegy on Dicky and Dolly

Mad Mullinix and Timothy

Tom Mullinex and Dick

Dick, a Maggot

A Pastoral Dialogue

On burning a Dull Poem

Traulus (the first part)

The True English Dean to be Hanged for a Rape

The Character of Sir Robert Walpole

Verses on the Death of Dr Swift

Helter Skelter

The Place of the Damn'd

Epigram ('Lord Pam in the Church...')

'Deaf, giddy, helpless...'

'Ever eating, never cloying...'

An Epigram on Scolding

Verses for Applewomen, etc.