Representative Poetry Online
  Poet Index Poem Index Random Search
  Introduction Timeline Calendar Glossary Criticism Bibliography
  RPO Canadian Poetry UTEL
by Name
by Date
by Title
by First Line
by Last Line
Poet
Poem
Short poem
Keyword
Concordance

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

To Quilca, a Country House not in Good Repair


              1Let me thy Properties explain,
              2A rotten Cabin, dropping Rain;
              3Chimnies with Scorn rejecting Smoak;
              4Stools, Tables, Chairs, and Bed-steds broke:
              5Here Elements have lost their Vses,
              6Air ripens not, nor Earth produces:
              7In vain we make poor Sheelah toil,
              8Fire will not roast, nor Water boil.
              9Thro' all the Vallies, Hills, and Plains,
            10The Goddess Want in Triumph reigns;
            11And her chief Officers of State,
            12Sloth, Dirt, and Theft around her wait.

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Jonathan Swift, Poems on Several Occasions (Dublin: George Faulkner, 1737): 208-09. B-10 7549 Fisher Rare Book Library (Toronto).
First publication date: 1737
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 2.0.
Recent editing: 4:2002/5/29

Composition date: 1725
Form: Short Couplets

Other poems by Jonathan Swift

Your comments and questions are welcomed.
All contents copyright © Ian Lancashire (Department of English) and the University of Toronto
RPO is hosted by the University of Toronto Libraries.