Classic Poem

On grey goose quills sublime I'll soar,
To metaphors unreach'd before,
That scare the vulgar reader:
With style well form'd from Burke's best books —
From rules of grammar (e'en Horne Tooke's),
A bold and free Seceder.

I whom, dear Fox, you condescend
To call your Honourable Friend,
Shall live for everlasting:
That Stygian gallery I'll quit,
Where Printers crowd me as I sit
Half-dead with rage and fasting.

I feel! the growing down descends,
Like goose-skin, to my fingers ends —
Each nail becomes a feather:
My cropp'd head waves with sudden plumes,
Which erst (like B — df — rd's, or his groom's),
Unpowder'd, braved the weather.

I mount, I mount into the sky,
" Sweet bird, " to Petersburg I'll fly:
Or, if you bid, to Paris;
Fresh missions of the Fox and Goose
Successful treaties may produce;
Though Pitt in all miscarries.

Scotch, English, Irish Whigs shall read
The pamphlets, letters, odes I breed,
Charm'd with each bright endeavour:
Alarmists tremble at my strain,
E'en Pitt, made candid by champaign,
Shall hail Ad — r " the clever . "

Though criticism assail my name,
And luckless blunders blot my fame,
O! make nOneedless bustle;
As vain and idle it would be
To waste one pitying thought on me,
As to " unplumb a R — ss — ll. "