The Book-Worm
Come hither, Boy, we'll hunt to Day
The Book-Worm, ravening Beast of Prey,
Produc'd by Parent Earth, at odds
(As Fame reports it) with the Gods.
Him frantick Hunger wildly drives
Against a thousand Authors Lives:
Thro' all the Fields of Wit he flies;
Dreadful his Head with clust'ring Eyes,
With Horns without, and Tusks within,
And Scales to serve him for a Skin.
Observe him nearly, lest he climb
To wound the Bards of antient Time,
Or down the Vale of Fancy go
To tear some modern Wretch below:
On ev'ry Corner fix thine Eye,
Or ten to one he slips thee by.
See where his Teeth a Passage eat:
We'll rouse him from the deep Retreat.
But who the Shelter's forc'd to give?
'Tis Sacred Virgil as I live!
From Leaf to Leaf, from Song to Song,
He draws the tadpole Form along,
He mounts the gilded Edge before,
He's up, he scuds the Cover o'er,
He turns, he doubles, there he past,
And here we have him, caught at last.
Insatiate Brute, whose Teeth abuse
The sweetest Servants of the Muse.
(Nay never offer to deny,
I took thee in the Fact to fly.)
His Roses nipt in ev'ry Page,
My poor Anacreon mourns thy Rage.
By thee my Ovid wounded lies;
By thee my Lesbia's Sparrow dies:
Thy rabid Teeth have half destroy'd
The Work of Love in Biddy Floyd,
They rent Belinda's Locks away,
And spoil'd the Blouzelind of Gay.
For all, for ev'ry single Deed,
Relentless Justice bids thee bleed.
Then fall a Victim to the Nine,
My self the Priest, my Desk the Shrine.
Bring Homer, Virgil, Tasso near,
To pile a sacred Altar here;
Hold, Boy, thy Hand out-run thy Wit,
You reach'd the Plays that D---s writ;
You reach'd me Ph---s rustick Strain;
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poem by Thomas Parnell
Added by Poetry Lover
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