Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.
Vol. III. The Eighteenth Century: Addison to Blake | | | | The Day of Judgment | | By Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) |
| | (First printed in a letter from Lord Chesterfield to Voltaire, Aug. 27, 1752.) |
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WITH a whirl of thought oppress’d, | |
| I sunk from reverie to rest. | |
| A horrid vision seized my head, | |
| I saw the graves give up their dead! | |
| Jove, arm’d with terrors, bursts the skies, | 5 |
| And thunder roars and lightning flies! | |
| Amazed, confused, its fate unknown, | |
| The world stands trembling at his throne! | |
| While each pale sinner hung his head, | |
| Jove, nodding, shook the heavens, and said: | 10 |
| ‘Offending race of human kind, | |
| By nature, reason, learning, blind; | |
| You who, through frailty, stepp’d aside; | |
| And you, who never fell from pride: | |
| You who in different sects were shamm’d, | 15 |
| And come to see each other damn’d; | |
| (So some folk told you, but they knew | |
| No more of Jove’s designs than you;) | |
| —The world’s mad business now is o’er, | |
| And I resent these pranks no more. | 20 |
| —I to such blockheads set my wit! | |
| I damn such fools!—Go, go, you’re bit.’ | | | |
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