An Epic Rainshower

Swift exaggerates a very simple, every day event, making it into a horrendous storm. A simple city shower turned into a hurricane, an epic event. He describes the coming storm as “the South, rising with dabbled wings, a sable cloud athwart the welkin flings, that swilled more liquor than it could contain,” (13-15), making the shower seem ominous and swiftly coming on its way. He even invokes the Gods in line 21, “You fly, invoke the gods” to try and intervene. When Swift mentions the Tories and Whigs running into the salons to escape the storm he also compares it to the fall of Troy and the Trojan horse in lines 47-50. This comparison shows that the politicians were not to be trusted, they were deceitful and would “run them through” if it was to their advantage. The last triplet is a very neoclassic form and is meant to draw attention to the three lines. They describe all the filth that is  “tumbling down the flood” (63), to aristocratic readers this would have been offensive in a way. They were reading about “dung, guts and blood” (61), which are all extremely base and lowly, not what the nobles would be used to reading about. Swift does a fantastic job of poking fun at the aristocrats and their need to dramatize everything as well as showing the deceit of the politicians of the time.