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Author of the Celebrated Worm-Powder
HOW much, egregious Moore! are we | |
| Deceiv’d by shows and forms! | |
| Whate’er we think, whate’er we see, | |
| All humankind are Worms. | |
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| Man is a very Worm by birth, | 5 |
| Vile reptile, weak, and vain! | |
| A while he crawls upon the earth, | |
| Then shrinks to earth again. | |
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| That woman is a Worm we find, | |
| E’er since our Grandam’s evil: | 10 |
| She first convers’d with her own kind, | |
| That ancient Worm, the Devil. | |
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| The learn’d themselves we Bookworms name, | |
| The blockhead is a Slowworm; | |
| The nymph whose tail is all on flame, | 15 |
| Is aptly term’d a Glowworm. | |
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| The fops are painted Butterflies, | |
| That flutter for a day; | |
| First from a Worm they take their rise, | |
| And in a Worm decay. | 20 |
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| The flatterer an Earwig grows; | |
| Thus worms suit all conditions; | |
| Misers are Muckworms; Silkworms, beaux; | |
| And Deathwatches, physicians. | |
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| That statesmen have the worm, is seen | 25 |
| By all their winding play; | |
| Their conscience is a Worm within, | |
| That gnaws them night and day. | |
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| Ah, Moore, thy skill were well employ’d, | |
| And greater gain would rise, | 30 |
| If thou couldst make the courtier void | |
| The Worm that never dies! | |
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| O learned friend of Abchurch-Lane, | |
| Who sett’st our entrails free, | |
| Vain is thy Art, thy Powder vain, | 35 |
| Since Worms shall eat ev’n thee. | |
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| Our fate thou only canst adjourn | |
| Some few short years, no more! | |
| Ev’n Button’s Wits to Worms shall turn, | |
| Who Maggots were before. | 40 |
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