-On one of the Windows at Delville

A bard, grown desirous of saving his pelf,
Built a house he was sure would hold none but himself.
This enraged god Apollo, who Mercury sent,
And bid him go ask what his votary meant?
"Some foe to my empire has been his adviser:
'Tis of dreadful portent when a poet turns miser!
Tell him, Hermes, from me, tell that subject of mine,
I have sworn by the Styx, to defeat his design;
For wherever he lives, the Muses shall reign;
And the Muses, he knows, have a numerous train."

• About Jonathan Swift