Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 8.djvu/23



O form a just and finish'd piece, Take twenty gods of Rome or Greece, Whose godships are in chief request, And fit your present subject best: And, should it be your hero's case, To have both male and female race, Your business must be to provide A score of goddesses beside. Some call their monarchs sons of Saturn, For which they bring a modern pattern; Because they might have heard of one, Who often long'd to eat his son: But this, I think, will not go down, For here the father kept his crown. Why, then, appoint him son of Jove, Who met his mother in a grove: To this we freely shall consent, Well knowing what the poets meant; And in their sense, 'twixt me and you, It may be literally true. Next, as the laws of verse require, He must be greater than his sire; For Jove, as every schoolboy knows. Was able Saturn to depose: And sure no Christian poet breathing Would be more scrupulous than a Heathen! Or, if to blasphemy it tends, That's but a trifle among friends. Your