The Seven Sages
The First. My great-grandfather spoke to Edmund Burke
In Grattans house.
The Sed. My great-grandfather shared
A pot-house bench with Oliver Goldsmith once.
The Third. My great-grandfathers father talked of music,
Drank tar-water with the Bishop of e.
The Fourth. But mine saw Stella once.
The Fifth. Whence came our thought?
The Sixth. From freat minds that hated Whiggery.
The Fifth. Burke was a Whig.
The Sixth. Whether they knew or not,
Goldsmith and Burke, Swift and the Bishop of e
All hated Whiggery; but what is Whiggery?
A levelling, rancorous, rational sort of mind
That never looked out of the eye of a saint
Or out of drunkards eye.
The Seventh. Alls Whiggery now,
But we old men are massed against the world.
The First. Ameri ies, Ireland, Frand India
Harried, and Burkes great melody against it.
The Sed. Oliver Goldsmith sang what he had seen,
Roads full of beggars, cattle in the fields,
But never saw the trefoil stained with blood,
The avengihose fields raised up against it.
The Fourth. The tomb of Swift wears it away.
The Third. A voice
Soft as the rustle of a reed from e
That gathers volume; now a thunder-clap.
The Sixtb. What schooling had these four?
The Seventh. They walked the roads
Mimig what they heard, as children mimic;
They uood that wisdom es of beggary.