Swift published this poem in the Tatler, and called it “the best thing I ever wrote.” The text is lightly modernized, and the notes are my own. This is a reading text, with no pretense to being a critical edition.
| Careful observers may foretell the hour | ||
| (By sure prognostics)° when to dread a shower: | signs of the future | |
| While rain depends,° the pensive cat gives o’er | is expected | |
| Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more. | ||
| 5 | Returning home at night, you’ll find the sink° | gutter |
| Strike your offended sense with double stink. | ||
| If you be wise, then go not far to dine; | ||
| You’ll spend in coach hire more than save in wine. | ||
| A coming shower your shooting corns presage,° | predict | |
| 10 | Old achès° throb, your hollow tooth will rage. | (two syllables) |
| Sauntering in coffeehouse is Dulman seen; | ||
| He damns the climate and complains of spleen.° | depression | |
| Meanwhile the South, rising with dabbled° wings, | wet and dirty | |
| A sable° cloud athwart° the welkin° flings, | black — across — sky | |
| 15 | That swilled° more liquor than it could contain, | drank |
| And, like a drunkard, gives it up again. | ||
| Brisk Susan whips her linen° from the rope, | laundry | |
| While the first drizzling shower is born aslope:° | across | |
| Such is that sprinkling which some careless quean° | lower-class girl | |
| 20 | Flirts on you from her mop, but not so clean: | |
| You fly, invoke the gods; then turning, stop | ||
| To rail;° she singing, still whirls on her mop. | complain | |
| Not yet the dust had shunned the unequal strife,° | struggle | |
| But, aided by the wind, fought still for life, | ||
| 25 | And wafted with its foe by violent gust, | |
| ’Twas doubtful which was rain and which was dust. | ||
| Ah! where must needy poet seek for aid, | ||
| When dust and rain at once his coat invade? | ||
| Sole coat, where dust cemented by the rain | ||
| 30 | Erects the nap,° and leaves a mingled stain. | makes fiber stand up |
| Now in contiguous° drops the flood comes down, | continuous | |
| Threatening with deluge° this devoted° town. | flood — doomed | |
| To shops in crowds the daggled° females fly, | muddy | |
| Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy. | ||
| 35 | The Templar spruce,° while every spout’s abroach, | well-dressed law student |
| Stays till ’tis fair, yet seems to call a coach. | ||
| The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty strides, | ||
| While seams run down her oiled umbrella’s sides. | ||
| Here various kinds, by various fortunes led, | ||
| 40 | Commence acquaintance underneath a shed.° | shelter |
| Triumphant Tories° and desponding Whigs° | (rival political parties) | |
| Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs. | ||
| Boxed in a chair° the beau impatient sits, | carried sedan chair | |
| While spouts run clattering o’er the roof by fits, | ||
| 45 | And ever and anon with frightful din | |
| The leather sounds; he trembles from within. | ||
| So when Troy chairmen bore the wooden steed,° | Trojan Horse | |
| Pregnant° with Greeks impatient to be freed | filled | |
| (Those bully° Greeks, who, as the moderns do, | thuggish | |
| 50 | Instead of paying chairmen, run them through), | |
| Laocoön° struck the outside with his spear | (wanted to test the Trojan Horse) | |
| And each imprisoned hero quaked for fear. | ||
| Now from all parts the swelling kennels° flow, | gutters | |
| And bear their trophies with them as they go: | ||
| 55 | Filth of all hues and odors seem to tell | |
| What street they sailed from, by their sight and smell. | ||
| They, as each torrent drives with rapid force, | ||
| From Smithfield or St. Pulchre’s shape their course, | ||
| And in huge confluence joined at Snow Hill ridge, | flowing together | |
| 60 | Fall from the conduit prone to Holborn Bridge. | |
| Sweepings from butchers’ stalls, dung, guts, and blood, | ||
| Drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud, | ||
| Dead cats, and turnip tops, come tumbling down the flood. |