Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/53

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When watchful death shall on his harvest look, And see thee, ripe with age, invite the hook; He'll gently cut thy bending stalk, and thee Lay kindly in the grave, his granary.

Oaks, whose extended arms the winds defy, The tempest sees their strength, and sighs, and passes by.

The sparkling flames raise water to a smile, Yet the pleas'd liquor pines, and lessens all the while.

5., I shall place the , which moves heavily under a load of metaphors, and draws after it a long train of words: and the , or stately, frequently and with great felicity mixed with the former. For, as the first is the proper engine to depress what is high, so is the second to raise what is base and low to a ridiculous visibility. When both these can be done at once, then is the bathos in perfection; as when a man is set with his head downward and his breech upright, his degradation is complete: one end of him is as high as ever, only that end is the wrong one. Will not every true lover of the profund, be delighted to behold the most vulgar and low actions of life, exalted in the following manner?

For whom thus rudely pleads my loud-tongu'd gate, That he may enter? See