As children tear the wings of flies away.
From place to place o'er Brobdignag I'll roam,
And never will return or bring thee home.
But who has eyes to trace the passing wind?
How, then, thy fairy footsteps can I find?
Dost thou bewildered wander all alone,
In the green thicket of a mossy stone;
Or tumbled from the toadstool's slippery round,
Perhaps all maimed, lie grovelling on the
ground?

Dost thou, embosomed in the lovely rose,
Or sunk within the peach's down, repose ?
Within the king-cup if thy limbs are spread,
Or in the golden cowslip's velvet head:

O show me, Flora, midst those sweets the flower Where sleeps my Grildrig in his fragrant bower. "But ah! I fear thy little fancy roves

On little females, and on little loves;
Thy pigmy children, and thy tiny spouse,
Thy baby playthings that adorn thy house,
Doors, windows, chimneys, and the spacious
rooms,

Equal in size to cells of honeycombs,

Hast thou for these now ventured from the shore,
Thy bark a bean-shell, and a straw thy oar?
Or in thy box, now bounding on the main,
Shall I ne'er bear thyself and house again?
And shall I set thee on my hand no more,
To see thee leap the lines and traverse o'er
My spacious palm? Of stature scarce a span,
Mimic the actions of a real man?

No more behold thee turn my watch's key,
As seamen at a capstern anchors weigh?

How wert thou wont to walk with cautious

tread,

A dish of tea like milk-pail on thy head!

How chase the mite that bore thy cheese away?

And keep the rolling maggot at a bay!"

She said, but broken accents stopped her voice, Soft as the speaking-trumpet's mellow noise: She sobbed a storm, and wiped her flowing eyes, Which seemed like two broad suns in misty skies O squander not thy grief; those tears command To weep upon our cod in Newfoundland : The plenteous pickle shall preserve the fish, And Europe taste thy sorrows in a dish.

III.

TO MR. LEMUEL GULLIVER,

THE GRATEFUL ADDRESS OF THE UNHAPPY HOUYHNHNMS, NOW IN SLAVERY AND BONDAGE IN ENGLAND.

O thee, we wretches of the Houyhnhnm

band,

Condemned to labour in a barbarous land,

Return our thanks. Accept our humble lays, And let each grateful Houyhnhnm neigh thy praise.

O happy Yahoo! purged from human crimes, By thy sweet sojourn in those virtuous climes. Where reign our sires; there, to thy country's shame,

Reason, you found, and virtue were the same. Their precepts razed the prejudice of youth, And even a Yahoo learned the force of truth.

Art thou the first who did the coast explore; Did never Yahoo tread that ground before? Yes, thousands! But in pity to their kind, Or swayed by envy, or through pride of mind,

They hid their knowledge of a nobler race, Which owned, would all their sires and sons disgrace.

You, like the Samian, visit lands unknown, And by their wiser morals mend your own. Thus Orpheus travelled to reform his kind, Came back, and tamed the brutes he left behind.

You went, you saw, you heard; with virtue fought,

Then spread those morals which the Houyhnhnms taught.

Our labours here must touch thy generous

heart,

To see us strain before the coach and cart; Compelled to run each knavish jockey's heat! Subservient to Newmarket's annual cheat!

With what reluctance do we lawyers bear, To fleece their country clients twice a year? Or managed in your schools, for fops to ride, How foam, how fret beneath a load of pride! Yes, we are slaves--but yet, by reason's force, Have learned to bear misfortune, like a horse.

O would the stars, to ease my bonds, ordain, That gentle Gulliver might guide my rein! Safe would I bear him to his journey's end, For 'tis a pleasure to support a friend. But if my life be doomed to serve the bad, O! may'st thou never want an easy pad! HOUYHNHNM.

IV.

MARY GULLIVER TO CAPTAIN
LEMUEL GULLIVER.

AN EPISTLE.

ARGUMENT.

The Captain, some time after his return, being retired to Mr. Sympson's in the country, Mrs. Gulliver, apprehending from his late behaviour some estrangement of his affections, writes him the following expostulating, soothing, and tenderly complaining epistle.

M ELCOME, thrice welcome, to thy native place!

W

-What, touch me not? what, shun

a wife's embrace ?

Have I for this thy tedious absence borne, And waked, and wished whole nights for thy return?

In five long years I took no second spouse; What Redriff wife so long hath kept her vows? Your eyes, your nose, inconstancy betray;

Your nose you stop; your eyes you turn away. 'Tis said, that thou shouldst cleave unto thy wife;

Once thou didst cleave, and I could cleave for life.

Hear, and relent! hark how thy children moan;
Be kind at least to these: they are thy own;
Be bold, and count them all; secure to find
The honest number that you left behind.
See how they pat thee with their pretty paws:
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 retained his love. There's Captain Pennell, absent half his life, Comes back, and is the kinder to his wife. Yet Pennell's wife is brown, compared to me; And Mrs. Biddel sure is fifty-three.

Not touch me! never neighbour called me
slut:

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 ?
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 possessed;

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,) Alone I press; in dreams I call my dear, I stretch my hand, no Gulliver is there! I wake, I rise, and shivering with the frost, Search all the house,-my Gulliver is lost! Forth in the street I rush with frantic cries; 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 everything to please thy taste);