Page:Trivia (John Gay) to which is added London (Samuel Johnson) (1809).djvu/73

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LONDON:

A POEM

IN IMITATION OF THE THIRD SATIRE OF JUVENAL, 1738.

 
"——Quis ineptæ
"Tam patiens urbis, tam ferreus ut teneat se?"

Juv.



Though grief and fondness in my breast rebel
When injur'd Thales bids the town farewell,
Yet still my calmer thoughts his choice commend. . . .
I praise the hermit, but regret the friend;
Who now resolves, from vice and London far,
To breathe in distant fields a purer air;
And, fix'd on Cambria's solitary shore,
Give to St. David one true Briton more.
For who would leave, unbrib'd, Hibernia's land,
Or change the rocks of Scotland for the Strand?
There none are swept by sudden fate away,
But all whom hunger spares, with age decay: