Classic Poem

Methinks I see our mighty monarch stand,
His pliant angle trembling in his hand,
Pleased with the sport, good man, nor does he know
His easy sceptre bends, and trembles so.
Fine representative, indeed, of God,
Whose sceptre's dwindled to a fishing-rod.
Such was Domitian in his Romans' eyes,
When his great Godship stooped to catching flies:
Bless us, what pretty sport have deities!
But see, he now does up from Datchet come,
Laden with spoils of slaughtered gudgeons home,
Nor is he warned by their unhappy fate,
But greedily he swallows every bait,
A prey to every kingfisher of state.
For how he gudgeons takes you have been taught,
Then listen now how he himself is caught.
So well, alas! the fatal bait is known,
Which Rowley does so greedily take down;
And howe'er weak and slender be the string,
Bait it with whore. and it will hold a King.