Читать книгу A Satire Anthology - Wells Carolyn - Страница 38

WOULD you that Delville I describe?

Believe me, sir, I will not gibe;

For who could be satirical

Upon a thing so very small?

You scarce upon the borders enter,

Before you’re at the very centre.

A single crow can make it night,

When o’er your farm she takes her flight:

Yet, in this narrow compass, we

Observe a vast variety;

Both walks, walls, meadows, and parterres,

Windows, and doors, and rooms, and stairs,

And hills, and dales, and woods, and fields,

And hay, and grass, and corn, it yields;

All to your haggard brought so cheap in,

Without the mowing or the reaping:

A razor, tho’ to say’t I’m loth,

Would shave you and your meadows both.

Tho’ small’s the farm, yet here’s a house

Full large to entertain a mouse;

But where a rat is dreaded more

Than savage Caledonian boar;

For, if it’s enter’d by a rat,

There is no room to bring a cat.

A little rivulet seems to steal

Down thro’ a thing you call a vale,

Like tears adown a wrinkled cheek,

Like rain along a blade of leek:

And this you call your sweet meander,

Which might be suck’d up by a gander,

Could he but force his nether bill

To scoop the channel of the rill.

For sure you’d make a mighty clutter,

Were it as big as city gutter.

Next come I to your kitchen garden,

Where one poor mouse would fare but hard in;

And round this garden is a walk,

No longer than a tailor’s chalk;

Thus I compare what space is in it,

A snail creeps round it in a minute.

One lettuce makes a shift to squeeze

Up thro’ a tuft you call your trees:

And, once a year, a single rose

Peeps from the bud, but never blows;

In vain then you expect its bloom!

It cannot blow for want of room.

In short, in all your boasted seat,

There’s nothing but yourself that’s GREAT.