Читать книгу Terrible Tractoration, and Other Poems онлайн

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Unless these villainous Perkineans

Are forthwith hurl’d to Nick’s dominions,

Those wicked tractors, I’m afraid,

Will overturn the doctor’s trade.

And then, alas! your worships may

Be forced to moil the live long day,

With hammer, pickaxe, spade, or shovel,

And nightly tenant some old hovel.

Or, destitute of food and lodging,

Through dark and dirty lanes be dodging,

Unless t’avoid such dismal lurkings,

You put a powerful paw on Perkins.

Behold what ought to raise your spleen high,

Perkins supported by Aldini![55]

It must have been most sad, foul weather,

From Italy to blow him hither.

My wrath, indeed, is now so keen, I

Ev’n wish, for sake of that Aldini,

This ink were poison for the wizard,

This pen a dagger in his gizzard!

For he (’tis told in public papers)

Can make dead people cut droll capers;

And shuffling off death’s iron trammels,

To kick and hop like dancing camels.

To raise a dead dog he was able,[56]

Though laid in quarters on a table,

And led him yelping, round the town,

With two legs up, and two legs down;[57]