MEDITATION on a T——d, Wrote in a Place of Ease.

SINCE most agree, that ’tis a Crime In any Place to spend one’s Time Without the Use of Contemplation, And Pleasures of Imagination, Since Boyle and Swift could each descant on A Broomstick, Windmill, Hedge, or Lanthorn, With the same Gravity as Cato, Dying expostulates with Plato, Why shou’d I in a Place of Ease Exert my Talent less than these? Virgil himself, as we are told, In Ennius’ Excrement found Gold, And those are call’d Gold-finders hence, Who deal much in Sir Reverence; Why then shou’d I, more Nice than Wise, Disdain a T—d to Anatomize? First then, methinks, as here I squeeze, With both my Hands fix’d on my Knees As I, with terrible Grimace, Torture each Muscle of my Face; Till happily at last I vent The painful Load of Excrement, So Statesmen too, with equal Pains, And like advantage, rack their Brains, Till big with Projects duly weigh’d, The ponderous Burden they unlade. Sometimes indeed, when ill-design’d, Their Plots evaporate in Wind. As bloated Guts, with Cholick swell’d, With only Emptiness seem’d fill’d; Till through Back-door of Fundament, The airy Pain expires in Scent. But most of all my present State, Seems to the Poet’s adequate; As, sometimes Costive, I with Pain, To ease my loaded Stomach Strain; Sometimes my Guts more Laxative, Their voluntary Tribute give; So, oft the Poor Brain-costive Bard, To vent his Excrement strains hard; Unless some generous Patron urges, Oh, then how easily he purges! If Money makes it work, what Tool So bound, he cannot have a Stool? And as the same Effect in Things, From various Causes often springs; So, if the Influence of Ill Nature His Panegyric sow’rs to Satyr, This on him too will work so strong, He’ll squirt o’er all the Town his Dung— What easy Stools has Dr. Y—! All Human Titles, soon or later, Contribute to the Jakes of Nature, And though the Moralists will say, Mankind is but a Lump of Clay, To speak my meaning in a Word, E’en Man himself’s a very T—d; And, as you know, the Bad and Good, The nicest Bits, and coarsest Food, That homeliest Peasants can content, Or daintiest Epicures invent, From Oglio’s, Kickshaws, and Ragoûs, To Onions, Trotters, Roots, and Sloes, ’Ith’ Stomach equally frement, Till all is turn’d to Excrement: So Clowns, Coquets, Town-Bullies, Smarts, With Spades, or Diamonds, Clubs, or Hearts, Together Rot, not any Diff’rence Betwixt Sir Fopling and Sir Rev’rence. Thus, to conclude my Stool and Story, You find, by what I’ve laid before you; The World, and all the World affords, Is but one numerous Heap of T—ds.