Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Ireland: Vol. V. 1876–79.
On Cutting down the Thorn, at Market Hill
By Jonathan Swift (16671745)A
By chronicle of ancient date,
There stood for many hundred years
A spacious thorn before the gate.
And on the boughs her garland hung;
And here, beneath the spreading shade,
Secure from satyrs sat and sung.
The lord of all the fruitful plain,
Would come and listen with delight;
For he was fond of rural strain.
Shall stand for ages on record,
By Scottish bards of highest fame,
Wise Hawthornden and Stirling’s lord.)
Has cankered all its branches round;
No fruit or blossom to be seen,
Its head reclining toward the ground.
Which must, alas! no longer stand,
Behold the cruel Dean in scorn
Cuts down with sacrilegious hand.
Thus, when the gentle Spina found
The thorn committed to her care,
Received its last and deadly wound,
She fled, and vanished into air.
First issuing struck the murderer’s ears:
And, in a shrill revengeful tone,
This prophecy he trembling hears:
Relentless Dean, to mischief born;
My kindred oft thine hide shall gall,
Thy gown and cassock oft be torn.
That she condemned me to the fire,
Shall rend her petticoats to rags,
And wound her legs with every brier.
To thee I often called in vain,
Against that assassin in crape;
Yet thou couldst tamely see me slain:
Or chid the Dean, or pinched thy spouse;
Since you could see me treated so
(An old retainer to your house),
Was formed this Machiavelian plot,
Not leave a thistle on thy land;
Then who will own thee for a Scot?
Through all my empire I foresee,
To tear thy hedges join in leagues,
Sworn to revenge my thorn and me.
Neal Gahagan, Hibernian clown,
With hatchet blunter than thy pate,
To hack my hallowed timber down;
Diest on a more ignoble tree
(For thou shalt steal thy landlord’s mare),
Then, bloody caitiff! think on me.”