ON SIRIS AND ITS ENEMIES

How can devoted Siris stand

Such dire attacks? The licens’d band

With upcast eyes and visage sad

Proclaim, ‘Alas! the world’s run mad.

The prelate’s book has turned their brains,

To set them right will cost us pains.

His drug too makes our patients sick;

And this doth vex us to the quick.’

And vexed they must be, to be sure,

To find tar-water cannot cure,

But makes men sicker still and sicker,

And fees come thicker still and thicker.

Bursting with pity for mankind,

But to their own advantage blind,

Many a wight, with face of fun’ral,

From mortar, still, and urinal,

Hastes to throw in his scurvy mite

Of spleen, of dulness, and of spite,

To furnish the revolving moons

With pamphlets, epigrams, lampoons,

Against tar-water. You’d know why?

Think who they are, you’ll soon descry

What means each angry doleful ditty,

Whether themselves or us they pity.