Thither, gentle muse, conduct me;
I shall ask, and you instruct me.
See the muse unbars the gate!
Hark, the monkeys, how they prate!
All ye gods who rule the soul!
Styx, through hell whose waters roll!
Let me be allowed to tell
What I heard in yonder cell.
Near the door an entrance gapes,
Crowded round with antic shapes,
Poverty, and Grief, and Care,
Causeless Joy, and true Despair;
Discord periwigged with snakes,
See the dreadful strides she takes!
By this odious crew beset,
I began to rage and fret,
And resolved to break their pates,
Ere we entered at the gates;
Had not Clio in the nick
Whispered me, 'Lay down your stick.'
What, said I, is this the mad-house?
These, she answered, are but shadows,
Phantoms bodiless and vain,
Empty visions of the brain.'
In the porch Briareus stands,
Shows a bribe in all his hands;
Briareus, the secretary,
But we mortals call him Carey.
When the rogues their country fleece,
They may hope for pence a-piece.
Clio, who had been so wise
To put on a fool's disguise,
To bespeak some approbation,
And be thought a near relation,
When she saw three hundred brutes
All involved in wild disputes,
Roaring till their lungs were spent,
'Privilege of Parliament.'
Now a new misfortune feels,
Dreading to be laid by the heels.
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