Behold thoſe Monarch-Oaks that riſe,
With lofty Branches to the Skies,
Have large proportion’d Roots that grow
With equal Longitude below:
Two Bards that now in faſhion reign,
Moſt aptly this Device explain:
If This to Clouds and Stars will venture,
That creeps as far to reach the Centre;
Or more to ſhow the Thing I mean,
Have you not o’er a Sawpit ſeen,
A ſkill’d Mechanick that has ſtood,
High on a Length of proſtrate Wood,
Who hir’d a ſubterraneous Friend,
To take his Iron by the End;
But which excell’d was never found
The Man above, or under Ground.
The Moral is ſo plain to hit,
That had I been the God of Wit,
Then in a Sawpit and wet Weather,
Shou’d Y——g and Ph——ps drudge together.
The Universal Mercury (London) – February, 1725
The above poem, published anonymously by Jonathan Swift, was meant as an act of censure on the poetical character of Edward Young and Ambrose Philips.
—Jeff Burks