Poem of the day illustration

Tue Dec 02 2025

Poem of the day

Epigram; In Answer To The Dean's Verses On His Own Deafness [1]

What though the Dean hears not the knell
Of the next church's passing bell;
What though the thunder from a cloud,
Or that from female tongue more loud,
Alarm not; At the Drapier's ear,
Chink but Wood's halfpence, and he'll hear.

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. Swift is remembered for works such as "A Tale of a Tub" (1704), "An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity" (1712), and "Gulliver's Travels" (1726). Swift originally published all of his works under pseudonyms—such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, Drapier's Letters as MB Drapier—and works were sometimes attributed to Anonymous.

Jonathan Swift