Poem by Jonathan Swift

Corinna

This day (the year I dare not tell)
Apollo play'd the midwife's part;
Into the world Corinna fell,
And he endued her with his art.

But Cupid with a Satyr comes;
Both softly to the cradle creep;
Both stroke her hands, and rub her gums,
While the poor child lay fast asleep.

Then Cupid thus: 'This little maid
Of love shall always speak and write;'
'And I pronounce,' the Satyr said,
'The world shall feel her scratch and bite.'

Her talent she display'd betimes;
For in a few revolving moons,
She seem'd to laugh and squall in rhymes,
And all her gestures were lampoons.

At six years old, the subtle jade
Stole to the pantry-door, and found
The butler with my lady's maid:
And you may swear the tale went round.

She made a song, how little miss
Was kiss'd and slobber'd by a lad:
And how, when master went to p—,
Miss came, and peep'd at all he had.

At twelve, a wit and a coquette;
Marries for love, half whore, half wife;
Cuckolds, elopes, and runs in debt;
Turns authoress, and is Curll's for life.

Her common-place book all gallant is,
Of scandal now a cornucopia;
She pours it out in Atalantis
Or memoirs of the New Utopia. 

1. At Holyhead
2. Dean Swift at Sir Arthur Acheson’s, in the North of Ireland
3. Drapier’s Hill
4. Verses on Blenheim
5. On Stella's Birth-day 1719

Letitia Landon Corinna ("She stood alone; but on her every eye")

Print

1666 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version