Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 8.djvu/230

 If you unus'd have scarcely strength To gain this walk's untoward length; If, frighten'd at a scene so rude, Through long disuse of solitude; If, long confin'd to fires and screens, You dread the waving of these greens; If you, who long have breath'd the fumes Of city fogs and crowded rooms, Do now solicitously shun The cooler air and dazzling sun; If his majestick eye you flee, Learn hence t' excuse and pity me. Consider what it is to bear The powder'd courtier's witty sneer; To see th' important man of dress Scoffing my college awkwardness; To be the strutting cornet's sport, To run the gauntlet of the court, Winning my way by slow approaches, Through crowds of coxcombs and of coaches, From the first fierce cockaded sentry, Quite through the tribe of waiting gentry; To pass so many crowded stages, And stand the staring of your pages; And, after all, to crown my spleen, Be told — 'You are not to be seen:' Or, if you are, be forc'd to bear The awe of your majestick air. And can I then be faulty found, In dreading this vexatious round? Can it be strange, if I eschew A scene so glorious and so new? Or is he criminal that flies The living lustre of your eyes?" THE