Dr. Wild's Poem. IN NOVA FERT ANIMƲS, &c, OR, A NEW SONG TO AN OLD FRIEND from an OLD POET, Upon the Hopeful New Parliament.
WE are All tainted with the
Athenian-Itch,
News, and new Things do the whole World bewitch.
Who would be Old, or in Old fashions Trade?
Even an Old Whore would fain go for a Maid:
The Modest of both Sexes, buy new Graces,
Of Perriwigs for Pates, and Paint for Faces.
Some wear new Teeth in an old Mouth; and some
Carve a new Nose out of an aged Bum.
Old
Hesiod's gods Immortal Youth enjoy:
Cupid, though Blind, yet still goes for a Boy;
Under one Hood Hypocrite
Janus too,
Carries two faccs, one Old, th'other New.
Apollo wears no Beard, but still looks young;
Diana, Pallas, Venus, all the throng
Of Muses Graces, Nymphs, look Brisk and Gay,
Priding themselves in a perpetual
May.
Whiles doting
Saturn, Pluto, Proserpin,
At their own ugly Wrinkles Rage and Grin;
The very Furies in their looks do twine;
Snakes, whose embroydered skyns nenew their shine;
And nothing makes Great
Juno chafe and scold,
But
Joves new Misses slighting her as Old.
Poets, who others can Immortal make,
When they grow Gray, their Lawrels them forsake;
And seek young Temples, where they may grow Green;
No Palsie-hands may wash in
Hypocrene;
'Twas not Terse Clarret, Eggs, and Muskadine,
Nor Goblets Crown'd with
Greek or
Spanish Wine,
Could make new Flames in Old
Ben Johnsons Veins,
But his Attempts prov'd lank and languid strains:
His
New Inn (so he nam'd his youngest Play)
Prov'd a blind Ale-house, cry'd down the first Day:
His own dull Epitaph—
Here lies Ben Johnson,
(Half drunken too) He Hickcupt—
who was once one.
Ah! this sad
once one! once we
Trojans were;
Oh, better never, if not still we are.
Rhymes, of Old Men,
Iliack passions be,
When that should downward go, comes up we see,
And are like
Jews-Ears in an Elder-Tree;
When Spectacles do once bestride the Nose,
The Poet's Gallop turns to stumbling-Prose.
Sir, I am Old, Cold, Mould; and you might hope
To see an
Alderman dance on a Rope,
A
Judg to act a Gallant in a Play,
Or an Old
Pluralist Preach twice a day;
Of a Thin
Taylor make a Valiant Knight,
Or a
good Subject of a
Jesuite;
As an old Bald-pate (such as mine- you know)
Should make his Hair, or Wit and Fancy grow
Nor is there need that such a Block as I
Should now be hew'd into a
Mercury.
When Winter's gone, the Owl his foot may spare,
And to the
Nightingales resign the Air.
Such is the beautiful new face of things:
By Heavens kind Influences, and the Kings,
Joy should inspire; and all in measures move,
And every Citizen a
Virgil prove.
Each
Protestant turn Poet; and who not
Should be suspected guilty of the
Plot;
If, now the day doth dawn, our Cocks forbear
To clap their Wings and Crow, you well may swear,
It is their want of Loyalty, not Wit,
That makes them sullen, and so silent sit.
Galli of
Gallick kind—I'le say no more,
But that their Combs are Cut, and they are sore;
Yet to provoke them, my old Cock shall Crow,
That so his Eccho round the Town may go.
Upon the New PARLIAMENT.
MY Landlord underprop't his House some years,
Was often warn'd—'Twould fall about his Ears;
For the main Timber, That above, and under,
By every Blast was apt to rend asunder.
This year He gently took all down, and then
What of the Old prov'd sound, did serve agen.
May all the New be Heart of
English Oak,
And the whole House stand firm from fatal strok,
And nothing in't, the Founder e're provoke.
My
Grandam, when her Bees were old and done,
Burnt the old Stock, and a new Hive begun;
And in one year she found a greater store
Of
Wax and
Honey then in all before.
Variety and Novelty delights;
Old Shooes and Mouldy Bread are
Gibeonites.
When Cloaths grow thread-bare, and breeds Vermin too,
To
Long Lane with them, and put on some new:
When VVine turns Vinegar—All Art is vain,
The VVorld can never make it Wine again.
'Tis time to wean that Child, who bites the Breast;
And Chase those fowls that do befowl their Nest.
When
Nolls Nose found the Rump began to smell;
He dock't it, and the Nation lik't it well.
Cast the old-mark't and greazy Cards away,
And give's a new Pack, else we will not play;
Nothing but Pork, and Pork, and Pork, to eat!
Good Lanlord give's fresh COMMANS for our Meat.
Trent Council Thirty years lay sows'd in pickle,
Until it prov'd a stinking Conventicle.
And now Old
Rome plays over her old Tricks,
This
Seventy-nine, shall pay for
Sixty-six:
Out of the Fire, like new refined Gold,
How bright new
London looks above the Old,
All Creatures under Old Corruptions groan,
And for a New Creation make their moan:
The
Phoenix (of her self grown weary) dyes
Unto succession a burnt-sacrifice.
Old Eagles breed bad Hawks, and they worse Kites,
And they blind Buzzard (as Old
Pliny Writes),
Deans, Prebends, Chaplains think themselves have wrong,
When
Bishops live unmercifully long;
And poor
Dissenters beg they may ascend
Into a Pulpit from the Tables end.
And who hath not by good experience found
Best Crops are gained by new-broken ground,
And the first seed—OATS sifted clean and sound?
But yet Old Friends, Old Gold, Old King, I praise:
Old
Tyburn take them who do otherwise:
Heaven Chase the Vultur from our Eagles Nest,
And let no Ravens this
March-Brood molest?
So Sings poor Robin Redbrest.
FINIS.