The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 7/The Beau's Reply

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The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 7
(1728)
by Jonathan Swift, edited by Thomas Sheridan, John Nichols, John Boyle, Patrick Delany, John Hawkesworth, Deane Swift, William Bowyer, John Birch, and George Faulkner

The Beau's Reply

The Journal of a modern Lady

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This poem is a response to the previous poem, The Five Ladies Answer.

Jonathan Swift1560716The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 7
— The Beau's Reply1728Thomas Sheridan, John Nichols, John Boyle, Patrick Delany, John Hawkesworth, Deane Swift, William Bowyer, John Birch, and George Faulkner

THE BEAU'S REPLY

TO THE

FIVE LADIES ANSWER.

WHY, how now dapper Black,
I smell your gown and cassock,
As strong upon your back,
As Tisdal^[1] smells of a sock.

To write such scurvy stuff!
Fine ladies never do't;
I know you well enough,
And eke your cloven foot.

Fine ladies, when they write,
Nor scold, nor keep a splutter:
Their verses give delight,
As soft and sweet as butter.

But Satan never saw
Such haggard lines as these:
They stick athwart my maw,
As bad as Suffolk cheese.

↑ A clergyman in the North of Ireland, who had made proposals of marriage to Stella.

[1] A clergyman in the North of Ireland, who had made proposals of marriage to Stella.

[1]