---

Jonathan Swift - Elegy Upon Tiger
Work rating: Low

Her dead lady`s joy and comfort,
Who departed this life
The last day of March, 1727:
To the great joy of Bryan
That his antagonist is gone.

And is poor Tiger laid at last so low?
O day of sorrow! -Day of dismal woe!
Bloodhounds, or spaniels, lap-dogs, `tis all one,
When Death once whistles -snap! -away they`re gone.
See how she lies, and hangs her lifeless ears,
Bathed in her mournful lady`s tears!
Dumb is her throat, and wagless is her tail,
Doomed to the grave, to Death`s eternal jail!
In a few days this lovely creature must
First turn to clay, and then be changed to dust.
That mouth which used its lady`s mouth to lick
Must yield its jaw-bones to the worms to pick.
That mouth which used the partridge-wing to eat
Must give its palate to the worms to eat.

Methinks I see her now in Charon`s boat
Bark at the Stygian fish which round it float;
While Cerberus, alarmed to hear the sound,
Makes Hell`s wide concave bellow all around.
She sees him not, but hears him through the dark,
And valiantly returns him bark for bark.
But now she trembles -though a ghost, she dreads
To see a dog with three large yawning heads.
Spare her, you hell-hounds, case your frightful paws,
And let poor Tiger `scape your furious jaws.
Let her go safe to the Elysian plains,
Where Hylax barks among the Mantuan swains;
There let her frisk about her new-found love:
She loved a dog when she was here above.

The Epitaph

Here lies beneath this marble
An animal could bark, or warble:
Sometimes a bitch, sometimes a bird,
Could eat a tart, or eat a t -.
Source
The script ran 0.001 seconds.