No More Learning

A Frenchman comes, presents you with his boy,
Bows and begins--"This lad, sir, is of Blois:
Observe his shape how clean! his locks how curled!
My only son, I'd have him see the world:
His French is pure; his voice too--you shall hear.
Sir, he's your slave for twenty pound a year.
Mere wax as yet, you fashion him with ease,
Your barber, cook, upholsterer, what you please:
A perfect genius at an opera song--
To say too much might do my honour wrong.
Take him with all his virtues, on my word;
His whole ambition was to serve a lord:
But, sir, to you, with what would I not part?
Though faith, I fear 'twill break his mother's heart.
Once (and but once) I caught him in a lie,
And then, unwhipped, he had the grace to cry:
The fault he has I fairly shall reveal,
(Could you o'erlook but that) it is to steal. "
If, after this, you took the graceless lad,
Could you complain, my friend, he proved so bad?
Faith, in such case, if you should prosecute,
I think Sir Godfrey should decide the suit:
Who sent the thief that stole the cash away,
And punished him that put it in his way.
Consider then, and judge me in this light;
I told you when I went, I could not write;
You said the same; and are you discontent
With laws to which you gave your own assent?
Nay worse, to ask for verse at such a time!
D'ye think me good for nothing but to rhyme?
In Anna's wars, a soldier poor and old
Had dearly earned a little purse of gold;
Tired with a tedious march, one luckless night,
He slept, poor dog! and lost it to a doit.
This put the man in such a desperate mind, }
Between revenge, and grief, and hunger joined }
Against the foe, himself, and all mankind, }
He leaped the trenches, scaled a castle wall,
Tore down a standard, took the fort and all.
"Prodigious well," his great commander cried,
Gave him much praise and some reward beside.
Next pleased his excellence a town to batter:
(Its name I know not, and it's no great matter).
"Go on, my friend," he cried, "see yonder walls,
Advance and conquer! go where glory calls!
More honours, more rewards attend the brave. "
Don't you remember what reply he gave?
"D'ye think me, noble general, such a sot?
Let him take castles who has ne'er a groat. "
Bred up at home, full early I begun
To read in Greek the wrath of Peleus' son.
Besides, my father taught me from a lad,
The better art to know the good from bad:
(And little sure imported to remove,
To hunt for truth in Maudlin's learned grove).
But knottier points we knew not half so well,
Deprived us soon of our paternal cell;
And certain laws, by sufferers thought unjust,
Denied all posts of profit or of trust:
Hopes after hopes of pious Papists failed,
While mighty William's thundering arm prevailed,
For right hereditary taxed and fined,
He stuck to poverty with peace of mind;
And me, the Muses helped to undergo it;
Convict a Papist he, and I a poet.
But (thanks to Homer) since I live and thrive,
Indebted to no prince or peer alive,
Sure I should want the care of ten Monroes,
If I would scribble rather than repose.
Years following years, steal something every day,
At last they steal us from ourselves away;
In one our frolics, one amusements end,
In one a mistress drops, in one a friend:
This subtle thief of life, this paltry time,
What will it leave me, if it snatch my rhyme?
If every wheel of that unwearied mill,
That turned ten thousand verses, now stands still?
But after all, what would you have me do?