Answered By Dr. Sheridan (To Lady Carteret)

Your house of hair, and lady's hand,
At first did put me to a stand.
I have it now - 'tis plain enough -
Your hairy business is a muff.
Your engine fraught with cooling gales,
At once so like your masts and sails;
Your thing of various shape and hue
Must be some painted toy, I knew;
And for the rhyme to you're the man,
What fits it better than a fan?

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. Swift is remembered for works such as "A Tale of a Tub" (1704), "An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity" (1712), and "Gulliver's Travels" (1726). Swift originally published all of his works under pseudonyms—such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, Drapier's Letters as MB Drapier—and works were sometimes attributed to Anonymous.

Jonathan Swift

The Progress Of Poetry

Jonathan Swift, Simple Poetry

Epigram By Mr. Bowyer Intended To Be Placed Under The Head Of Gulliver. 1733

Jonathan Swift, Simple Poetry

A Young Lady's Complaint For The Stay Of The Dean In England

Jonathan Swift, Simple Poetry

Bec's[1] Birth-Day; Nov. 8, 1726

Jonathan Swift, Simple Poetry

English

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To Lady Carteret

BY DR. SWIFT

FROM India's burning clime I'm brought,
With cooling gales like zephyrs fraught.
Not Iris, when she paints the sky,
Can show more different hues than I;
Nor can she change her form so fast,
I'm now a sail, and now a mast.
I here am red, and there am green,
A beggar there, and here a queen.
I sometimes live in house of hair,
And oft in hand of lady fair.
I please the young, I grace the old,
And am at once both hot and cold.
Say what I am then, if you can,
And find the rhyme, and you're the man.

Jonathan Swift

Answered By Dr. Swift (To Lady Carteret)

WITH half an eye your riddle I spy,
I observe your wicket hemm'd in by a thicket,
And whatever passes is strain'd through glasses.
You say it is quiet: I flatly deny it.
It wanders about, without stirring out;
No passion so weak but gives it a tweak;
Love, joy, and devotion, set it always in motion.
And as for trie tragic effects of its magic,
Which you say it can kill, or revive at its will,
The dead are all sound, and they live above ground:
After all you have writ, it cannot be wit;
Which plainly does follow, since it flies from Apollo.
Its cowardice such it cries at a touch;
'Tis a perfect milksop, grows drunk with a drop,
Another great fault, it cannot bear salt:
And a hair can disarm it of every charm.

Jonathan Swift

Dr. Sheridan To Dr. Swift

1718

Dear Dean, since in cruxes and puns you and I deal,
Pray why is a woman a sieve and a riddle?
'Tis a thought that came into my noddle this morning,
In bed as I lay, sir, a-tossing and turning.
You'll find if you read but a few of your histories,
All women, as Eve, all women are mysteries.
To find out this riddle I know you'll be eager,
And make every one of the sex a Belphegor.
But that will not do, for I mean to commend them;
I swear without jest I an honour intend them.
In a sieve, sir, their ancient extraction I quite tell,
In a riddle I give you their power and their title.
This I told you before; do you know what I mean, sir?
"Not I, by my troth, sir." - Then read it again, sir.
The reason I send you these lines of rhymes double,
...

Jonathan Swift

Dr. Sheridan's Reply To The Dean

Don't think these few lines which I send, a reproach,
From my Muse in a car, to your Muse in a coach.
The great god of poems delights in a car,
Which makes him so bright that we see him from far;
For, were he mew'd up in a coach, 'tis allow'd
We'd see him no more than we see through a cloud.
    You know to apply this - I do not disparage
Your lines, but I say they're the worse for the carriage.
    Now first you deny that a woman's a sieve;
I say that she is: What reason d'ye give?
Because she lets out more than she takes in.
Is't that you advance for't? you are still to begin.
Your major and minor I both can refute,
I'll teach you hereafter with whom to dispute.
A sieve keeps in half, deny't if you can.
D. "Adzucks, I mistook it, who thought of the bran?"
I ...

Jonathan Swift

The Furniture Of A Woman's Mind

A set of phrases learn'd by rote;
A passion for a scarlet coat;
When at a play, to laugh or cry,
Yet cannot tell the reason why;
Never to hold her tongue a minute,
While all she prates has nothing in it;
Whole hours can with a coxcomb sit,
And take his nonsense all for wit;
Her learning mounts to read a song,
But half the words pronouncing wrong;
Has every repartee in store
She spoke ten thousand times before;
Can ready compliments supply
On all occasions cut and dry;
Such hatred to a parson's gown,
The sight would put her in a swoon;
For conversation well endued,
She calls it witty to be rude;
And, placing raillery in railing,
Will tell aloud your greatest failing;
Nor make a scruple to expose
Your bandy leg, or crooked nose;
Can...

Jonathan Swift

Another Reply, By Sheridan

My pedagogue dear, I read with surprise
Your long sorry rhymes, which you made on my eyes;
As the Dean of St. Patrick's says, earth, seas, and skies!
I cannot lie down, but immediately rise,
To answer your stuff and the Doctor's likewise.
Like a horse with a gall, I'm pester'd with flies,
But his head and his tail new succour supplies,
To beat off the vermin from back, rump, and thighs.
The wing of a goose before me now lies,
Which is both shield and sword for such weak enemies.
Whoever opposes me, certainly dies,
Though he were as valiant as Condé or Guise.
The women disturb me a-crying of pies,
With a voice twice as loud as a horse when he neighs.
By this, Sir, you find, should we rhyme for a prize,
That I'd gain cloth of gold, when you'd scarce merit frize.

Jonathan Swift