History & Politics

To Lady Carteret (Riddle)

by Jonathan Swift 1667–1745

History & Politics

FROM India's burning clime I'm brought,
With cooling gales like zephyrs fraught.
Not Iris, when she paints the sky,
Can show more different hues than I;
Nor can she change her form so fast,
I'm now a sail, and now a mast.
I here am red, and there am green,
A beggar there, and here a queen.
I sometimes live in house of hair,
And oft in hand of lady fair.
I please the young, I grace the old,
And am at once both hot and cold.
Say what I am then, if you can,
And find the rhyme, and you're the man.

MLA

Swift, Jonathan. “To Lady Carteret (Riddle).” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/swift/189/.

Chicago

Swift, Jonathan. “To Lady Carteret (Riddle).” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/swift/189/.

Read this poem with the Codex →

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