To Sir Hudson Lowe
effare causam nominis, utrumne mores hoc tui nomen dedere, an nomen hoc secuta morum regula. AUSONIUS.
1816.
Sir Hudson Lowe, Sir Hudson Low,
(By name, and ah! by nature so)
As thou art fond of persecutions,
Perhaps thou’st read, or heard repeated,
How Captain Gulliver was treated,
When thrown among the Lilliputians.
They tied him down—these little men did—
And having valiantly ascended
Upon the Mighty Man’s protuberance,
They did so strut!—upon my soul,
It must have been extremely droll
To see their pigmy pride’s exuberance!
And how the doughty mannikins
Amused themselves with sticking pins
And needles in the great man’s breeches:
And how some very little things,
That past for Lords, on scaffoldings
Got up and worried him with speeches,
Alas, alas! that it should happen
To mighty men to be caught napping!—
Tho’ different too these persecutions;
For Gulliver, there, took the nap,
While, here, the Nap, oh sad mishap,
Is taken by the Lilliputians!