May’s poem
… is from Bernard Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees (the poem, “The Grumbling Hive,” was first published in 1705).
(Lines 167–203)
Speaking of changes in fashion: time was, there was a market for satirical political philosophy written in verse, and now there is none.
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The worst of all the multitude
Did something for the common good.
This was the state’s craft, that maintain’d
The whole of which each part complain’d:
This, as in music harmony
Made jarrings in the main agree,
Parties directly opposite,
Assist each other, as ’twere for spite;
And temp’rance with sobriety,
Serve drunkenness and gluttony.
The root of evil, avarice,
That damn’d ill-natur’d baneful vice,
Was slave to prodigality,
That noble sin; whilst luxury
Employ’d a million of the poor,
And odious pride a million more:
Envy itself, and vanity,
Were ministers of industry;
Their darling folly, fickleness,
In diet, furniture, and dress,
That strange ridic’lous vice, was made
The very wheel that turn’d the trade.
Their laws and clothes were equally
Objects of mutability!
For, what was well done for a time,
In half a year became a crime;
Yet while they altered thus their laws,
Still finding and correcting flaws,
They mended by inconstancy
Faults, which no prudence could foresee.
Thus vice nurs’d ingenuity,
Which join’d the time and industry,
Had carry’d life’s conveniences,
Its real pleasures, comforts, ease,
To such a height, the very poor
Liv’d better than the rich before.
And nothing could be added more.
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(Lines 167–203)
Speaking of changes in fashion: time was, there was a market for satirical political philosophy written in verse, and now there is none.