On the Posteriors

Because I am by nature blind,

I wisely choose to walk behind;

However, to avoid disgrace,

I let no creature see my face.

My words are few, but spoke with sense;

And yet my speaking gives offence:

Or, if to whisper I presume,

The company will fly the room.

By all the world I am opprest:

And my oppression gives them rest.

Through me, though sore against my will,

Instructors every art instil.

By thousands I am sold and bought,

Who neither get nor lose a groat;

For none, alas! by me can gain,

But those who give me greatest pain.

Shall man presume to be my master,

Who's but my caterer and taster?

Yet, though I always have my will,

I'm but a mere depender still:

An humble hanger-on at best;

Of whom all people make a jest.

In me detractors seek to find

Two vices of a different kind;

I'm too profuse, some censurers cry,

And all I get, I let it fly;

While others give me many a curse,

Because too close I hold my purse.

But this I know, in either case,

They dare not charge me to my face.

'Tis true, indeed, sometimes I save,

Sometimes run out of all I have;

But, when the year is at an end,

Computing what I get and spend,

My goings-out, and comings-in,

I cannot find I lose or win;

And therefore all that know me say,

I justly keep the middle way.

I'm always by my betters led;

I last get up, and first a-bed;

Though, if I rise before my time,

The learn'd in sciences sublime

Consult the stars, and thence foretell

Good luck to those with whom I dwell.