John Gay

John Gay Poems

Friendship, as love, is but a name,
Save in a concentrated flame;
And thus, in friendships, who depend
On more than one, find not one friend.
...

Daughter of Heav'n, relentless pow'r,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge, and tort'ring hour,
...



1 Shock's fate I mourn; poor Shock is now no more,
2 Ye Muses mourn, ye chamber-maids deplore.
3 Unhappy Shock! yet more unhappy fair,
4 Doom'd to survive thy joy and only care!
...

1 All in the Downs the fleet was moor'd,
2 The streamers waving in the wind,
3 When black-ey'd Susan came aboard.
4 Oh! where shall I my true love find!
...

Thus far the Muse has trac'd in useful lays
The proper implements for wintry ways;
Has taught the walker, with judicious eyes,
To read the various warnings of the skies.
...

Air I.An old woman clothed in gray, &c.1-
Through all the employments of life
-
Each neighbour abuses his brother;
...

A juggler long through all the town
Had raised his fortune and renown;
You'd think (so far his art transcends)
...

Air.
Love in her eyes sits playing,
And sheds delicious death;
Love on her lips is straying,
...

You, who the sweets of rural life have known,
Despise the ungrateful hurry of the town;
In Windsor groves your easy hours employ,
...

I sing that graceful toy, whose waving play,
With gentle gales relieves the sultry day.
Not the wide fan by Persian dames display'd,
...

MONDAY, OR, THE SQUABBLE
Lobbin Clout, Cuddy, CloddipoleCUDDY

Hold, witless Lobbin Clout, I thee advise,
...

I.
'Twas when the seas were roaring
With hollow blasts of wind;
A damsel lay deploring,
...

Remote from cities liv'd a swain,
Unvex'd with all the cares of gain;
His head was silver'd o'er with age,
And long experience made him sage;
...

How vain are mortal man's endeavours?
(Said, at dame Elleot's, master Travers)
Good Orleans dead! in truth 'tis hard:
...

Of the Implements for Walking the Streets,
and Signs of the Weather.

Through winter streets to steer your courses aright,
...

Thus Mommus spoke. When sage Minerva rose,
From her sweet lips smooth elocution flows,
Her skilful hand an ivory pallet grac'd,
...

Now, sporting muse, draw in the flowing reins,
Leave the clear streams a while for sunny plains.
Should you the various arms and toils rehearse,
...

Hobnelia.
Hobnelia, seated in a dreary vale,
In pensive mood rehears'd her piteous tale,
...

Lobbin Clout.
Thy younglings, Cuddy, are but just awake,
No thrustles shrill the bramble-bush forsake
...

Olympus' gates unfold: in heaven's high towers
Appear in council all the immortal powers;
Great Jove above the rest exalted sate,
...

John Gay Biography

John Gay was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera (1728), a ballad opera. The characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly Peachum, became household names. Early Life Gay was born in Barnstaple, England and was educated at the town's grammar school. On leaving school he was apprenticed to a silk mercer in London, but being weary, according to Samuel Johnson, "of either the restraint or the servility of his occupation", he soon returned to Barnstaple, where he was educated by his uncle, the Rev. John Hanmer, the Nonconformist minister of the town. He then returned to London. Early Career The dedication of his Rural Sports (1713) to Alexander Pope was the beginning of a lasting friendship. In 1714, Gay wrote The Shepherd's Week, a series of six pastorals drawn from English rustic life. Pope had urged him to undertake this task in order to ridicule the Arcadian pastorals of Ambrose Philips, who had been praised by a short-lived contemporary publication The Guardian, to the neglect of Pope's claims as the first pastoral writer of the age and the true English Theocritus. Gay's pastorals achieved this goal and his ludicrous pictures of the English country lads and their loves were found to be entertaining on their own account. Gay had just been appointed secretary to the British ambassador to the court of Hanover through the influence of Jonathan Swift when the death of Anne, Queen of Great Britain, three months later put an end to all his hopes of official employment. In 1715, probably with some help from Pope, he produced What d'ye call it?, a dramatic skit on contemporary tragedy, with special reference to Thomas Otway's Venice Preserv'd. It left the public so ignorant of its real meaning that Lewis Theobald and Benjamin Griffin published a Complete Key to what d'ye call it to explain it. In 1716 appeared his Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London, a poem in three books, for which he acknowledged having received several hints from Swift. It contains graphic and humorous descriptions of the London of that period. What is most interesting about the poem, however, is not the fact that it depicts the city with photographic accuracy, but that it acts as a guide to the upper, and upper-middle class walkers of society. In taking a mock-heroic form, Gay's poem was able to poke fun at the notion of complete reformation of street civility, whilst also proposing an idea of reform in terms of the attitude towards walking. In January 1717 he produced the comedy, Three Hours after Marriage, which was grossly indecent without being amusing and a failure. He had assistance from Pope and John Arbuthnot, but they allowed it to be assumed that Gay was the sole author. Patrons Gay had numerous patrons, and in 1720 he published Poems on Several Occasions by subscription, taking in £1000 or more. In that year James Craggs, the secretary of state, presented him with some South Sea stock. Gay, disregarding the advice of Pope and others of his friends, invested all his money in South Sea stock, and, holding on to the end of the South Sea Bubble, he lost everything. The shock is said to have made him dangerously ill. His friends did not fail him at this juncture. He had patrons in William Pulteney, afterwards Earl of Bath, in the third Earl of Burlington, who constantly entertained him at Chiswick or at Burlington House, and in the third Duke of Queensberry. He was a frequent visitor with Pope, and received unvarying kindness from William Congreve and John Arbuthnot. In 1727 he wrote for six year old Prince William, later the Duke of Cumberland, Fifty-one Fables in Verse, for which he naturally hoped to gain some preferment, although he has much to say in them of the servility of courtiers and the vanity of court honours. He was offered the situation of gentleman-usher to the Princess Louisa, who was also still a child. He refused this offer, which all his friends seem to have regarded as an indignity. He had never rendered any special services to the court. The Beggar's Opera He certainly did nothing to conciliate the favour of the government by his next work, The Beggar's Opera, a Ballad opera produced on the January 29, 1728 by John Rich, in which Sir Robert Walpole was caricatured. This famous piece, which was said to have made "Rich gay and Gay rich", was an innovation in many respects. The satire of the play has a double allegory. The characters of Peachum and Macheath represent the famous highwayman and gangster Jonathan Wild and the cockney housebreaker Jack Sheppard. At the same time, Jonathan Wild was understood to represent Robert Walpole, whose government had been tolerant of Wild's thievery and the South Sea directors' escape from punishment. Under cover of the thieves and highwaymen who figured in it was disguised a satire on society, for Gay made it plain that in describing the moral code of his characters he had in mind the corruptions of the governing class. Part of the success of The Beggar's Opera may have been due to the acting of Lavinia Fenton, afterwards Duchess of Bolton, in the part of Polly Peachum. The play ran for sixty-two nights. Swift is said to have suggested the subject, and Pope and Arbuthnot were constantly consulted while the work was in progress, but Gay must be regarded as the sole author. After seeing an early version of the work, Swift was optimistic of its commercial prospects but famously warned Gay to be cautious with his earnings: "I beg you will be thrifty and learn to value a shilling." Later career He wrote a sequel, Polly, relating the adventures of Polly Peachum in the West Indies; its production was forbidden by the Lord Chamberlain, no doubt through the influence of Walpole. This act of "oppression" caused no loss to Gay. It proved an excellent advertisement for Polly, which was published by subscription in 1729, and brought its author several thousand pounds. The Duchess of Queensberry was dismissed from court for enlisting subscribers in the palace. The Duke of Queensberry gave Gay a home, and the duchess continued her affectionate patronage until Gay's death, which took place on December 4, 1732. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. The epitaph on his tomb is by Pope, and is followed by Gay's own mocking couplet: Life is a jest, and all things show it, I thought so once, and now I know it.)

The Best Poem Of John Gay

Fable L: The Hare And Many Friends

Friendship, as love, is but a name,
Save in a concentrated flame;
And thus, in friendships, who depend
On more than one, find not one friend.

A hare who, in a civil way,
Was not dissimilar to GAY,
Was well known never to offend,
And every creature was her friend.
As was her wont, at early dawn,
She issued to the dewy lawn;
When, from the wood and empty lair,
The cry of hounds fell on her ear.
She started at the frightful sounds,
And doubled to mislead the hounds;
Till, fainting with her beating heart,
She saw the horse, who fed apart.
'My friend, the hounds are on my track;
Oh, let me refuge on your back! '

The horse responded: 'Honest Puss,
It grieves me much to see you thus.
Be comforted-relief is near;
Behold, the bull is in the rear.'

Then she implored the stately bull,
His answer we relate in full:
'Madam, each beast alive can tell
How very much I wish you well;
But business presses in a heap,
I an appointment have to keep;
And now a lady's in the case,-
When other things, you know, give place.
Behold the goat is just behind;
Trust, trust you'll not think me unkind.'

The goat declared his rocky lairs
Wholly unsuited were to hares.
'There is the sheep,' he said, 'with fleece.
Adapted, now, to your release.'

The sheep replied that she was sure
Her weight was too great to endure;
'Besides,' she said, 'hounds worry sheep.'

Next was a calf, safe in a keep:
'Oh, help me, bull-calf-lend me aid! '

'My youth and inexperience weighed,'
Replied the bull-calf, 'though I rue it,
Make me incompetent to do it;
My friends might take offence. My heart-
You know my heart, my friend-we part,
I do assure you-Hark! adieu!
The pack, in full cry, is in view.'

John Gay Comments

answer the queztion 03 May 2022

Can I get a..........

0 0 Reply

A linear composition and the triad of a monologue, then the elements may function if the Good Ahura Mazda exists for others.

0 1 Reply
urmomlel 26 March 2018

ur mum gey lel. ur mum gey lel. ur mum gey lel.

1 3 Reply
* Sunprincess * 30 June 2014

...............happy birthday john gay.....enjoyed your poems....

4 2 Reply

John Gay Quotes

Lions, wolves, and vultures don't live together in herds, droves or flocks. Of all animals of prey, man is the only sociable one. Every one of us preys upon his neighbour, and yet we herd together.

Sure men were born to lie, and women to believe them!

I must have women—there is nothing unbends the mind like them.

I must have women—there is nothing unbends the mind like them.

Of all mechanics, of all servile handycrafts-men, a gamester is the vilest. But yet, as many of the quality are of the profession, he is admitted amongst the politest company.

How the mother is to be pitied who hath handsome daughters! Locks, bolts, bars, and lectures of morality are nothing to them: they break through them all. They have as much pleasure in cheating a father and mother, as in cheating at cards.

But money, wife, is the true Fuller's Earth for reputations, there is not a spot or a stain but what it can take out.

A rich rogue now-a-days is fit company for any gentleman; and the world, my dear, hath not such a contempt for roguery as you imagine.

Gamesters and highwaymen are generally very good to their whores, but they are very devils to their wives.

Do you think your mother and I should have lived comfortably so long together, if ever we had been married? Baggage!

But money, wife, is the true Fuller's Earth for reputations, there is not a spot or a stain but what it can take out.

The comfortable estate of widowhood is the only hope that keeps up a wife's spirits.

Can you support the expense of a husband, hussy, in gaming, drinking and whoring? Have you money enough to carry on the daily quarrels of man and wife about who shall squander most?

John Gay Popularity

John Gay Popularity

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