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Jonathan Swift - Death And Daphne
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Death went upon a solemn day
At Pluto`s hall his court to pay;
The phantom having humbly kiss`d
His grisly monarch`s sooty fist,
Presented him the weekly bills
Of doctors, fevers, plagues, and pills.
Pluto, observing since the peace
The burial article decrease,
And vex`d to see affairs miscarry,
Declared in council Death must marry;
Vow`d he no longer could support
Old bachelors about his court;
The interest of his realm had need
That Death should get a numerous breed;
Young deathlings, who, by practice made
Proficient in their father`s trade,
With colonies might stock around
His large dominions under ground.
  A consult of coquettes below
Was call`d, to rig him out a beau;
From her own head Megaera takes
A periwig of twisted snakes:
Which in the nicest fashion curl`d,
(Like toupees of this upper world)
With flower of sulphur powder`d well,
That graceful on his shoulders fell;
An adder of the sable kind
In line direct hung down behind:
The owl, the raven, and the bat,
Clubb`d for a feather to his hat:
His coat, a usurer`s velvet pall,
Bequeath`d to Pluto, corpse and all.
But, loath his person to expose
Bare, like a carcass pick`d by crows,
A lawyer, o`er his hands and face
Stuck artfully a parchment case.
No new flux`d rake show`d fairer skin;
Nor Phyllis after lying in.
With snuff was fill`d his ebon box,
Of shin-bones rotted by the pox.
Nine spirits of blaspheming fops,
With aconite anoint his chops;
And give him words of dreadful sounds,
G—d d—n his blood! and b—d and w—ds!`
  Thus furnish`d out, he sent his train
To take a house in Warwick-lane:
The faculty, his humble friends,
A complimental message sends:
Their president in scarlet gown
Harangued, and welcomed him to town.
  But Death had business to dispatch;
His mind was running on his match.
And hearing much of Daphne`s fame,
His majesty of terrors came,
Fine as a colonel of the guards,
To visit where she sat at cards;
She, as he came into the room,
Thought him Adonis in his bloom.
And now her heart with pleasure jumps,
She scarce remembers what is trumps;
For such a shape of skin and bone
Was never seen except her own.
Charm`d with his eyes, and chin, and snout,
Her pocket-glass drew slily out;
And grew enamour`d with her phiz,
As just the counterpart of his.
She darted many a private glance,
And freely made the first advance;
Was of her beauty grown so vain,
She doubted not to win the swain;
Nothing she thought could sooner gain him,
Than with her wit to entertain him.
She ask`d about her friends below;
This meagre fop, that batter`d beau;
Whether some late departed toasts
Had got gallants among the ghosts?
If Chloe were a sharper still
As great as ever at quadrille?
(The ladies there must needs be rooks,
For cards, we know, are Pluto`s books.)
If Florimel had found her love,
For whom she hang`d herself above?
How oft a-week was kept a ball
By Proserpine at Pluto`s hall?
She fancied those Elysian shades
The sweetest place for masquerades;
How pleasant on the banks of Styx,
To troll it in a coach and six!
  What pride a female heart inflames?
How endless are ambition`s aims:
Cease, haughty nymph; the Fates decree
Death must not be a spouse for thee;
For, when by chance the meagre shade
Upon thy hand his finger laid,
Thy hand as dry and cold as lead,
His matrimonial spirit fled;
He felt about his heart a damp,
That quite extinguished Cupid`s lamp:
Away the frighted spectre scuds,
And leaves my lady in the suds.
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