I have to confess that satire isn't my poetry-of-choice. After encountering Juvenal's satires at A level, I found myself agreeing with whoever it was said that reading them was like listening to Ian Paisley shouting at the top of his voice for three hours - definitely works to be admired, rather than loved. But I've had a soft spot for Rochester ever since coming across the splendid 'Song of a Young Lady to her Ancient Lover' years ago, despite the fact that his satires make no attempt whatever to conform to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's excellent diktat, "Satire should, like a polished razor keen,/ Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen." And as liberaldogooder points out, this passage has just as much relevance for today's readers as it no doubt did for those alive in Rochester's day.
From Satire Against Reason And Mankind
And 'tis this very reason I despise
This supernatural gift that makes a mite
Think he's the image of the infinite,
Comparing his short life, void of all rest,
To the eternal and the ever blest,
This busy, puzzling stirrer up of doubt
That frames deep myst'ries and then finds them out,
Filling with frantic crowds of thinking fools
Those reverend bedlams, colleges and schools,
Borne on whose wings, each heavy sot can pierce
The limits of the boundless universe;
So charming ointments make an old witch fly
And bear a crippled carcass through the sky.
'Tis this exalted power, whose business lies
In nonsense and impossibilities,
This made a whimsical philosopher
Before the spacious world his tub prefer,
And we have modern, cloistered coxcombs who
Retire to think, 'cause they have nought to do.
But thoughts were given for action's government;
Where action ceases, thought's impertinent.
Our sphere of action is life's happiness,
And he who thinks beyond thinks like an ass.
JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER