The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 2

     Stella this day is thirty-four,
     (We shan't dispute a year or more:)
     However, Stella, be not troubled,
     Although thy size and years are doubled
     Since first I saw thee at sixteen,
     The brightest virgin on the green;
     So little is thy form declined;
     Made up so largely in thy mind.
       O, would it please the gods to split
     Thy beauty, size, and years, and wit!
     No age could furnish out a pair
     Of nymphs so graceful, wise, and fair;
     With half the lustre of your eyes,
     With half your wit, your years, and size.
     And then, before it grew too late,
     How should I beg of gentle fate,
     (That either nymph might have her swain,)
     To split my worship too in twain.

     WRITTEN A.D. 1720-21.—Stella.

     All travellers at first incline
     Where'er they see the fairest sign
     And if they find the chambers neat,
     And like the liquor and the meat,
     Will call again, and recommend
     The Angel Inn to every friend.
     And though the painting grows decay'd,
     The house will never lose its trade:
     Nay, though the treach'rous tapster,[2] Thomas,
     Hangs a new Angel two doors from us,
     As fine as daubers' hands can make it,
     In hopes that strangers may mistake it,
     We[3] think it both a shame and sin
     To quit the true old Angel Inn.
       Now this is Stella's case in fact,
     An angel's face a little crack'd.
     (Could poets or could painters fix
     How angels look at thirty-six:)
     This drew us in at first to find
     In such a form an angel's mind;
     And every virtue now supplies
     The fainting rays of Stella's eyes.
     See, at her levee crowding swains,
     Whom Stella freely entertains
     With breeding, humour, wit, and sense,
     And puts them to so small expense;
     Their minds so plentifully fills,
     And makes such reasonable bills,
     So little gets for what she gives,
     We really wonder how she lives!
     And had her stock been less, no doubt
     She must have long ago run out.
       Then, who can think we'll quit the place,
     When Doll hangs out a newer face?
     Nail'd to her window full in sight
     All Christian people to invite.
     Or stop and light at Chloe's head,
     With scraps and leavings to be fed?
       Then, Chloe, still go on to prate
     Of thirty-six and thirty-eight;
     Pursue your trade of scandal-picking,
     Your hints that Stella is no chicken;
     Your innuendoes, when you tell us,
     That Stella loves to talk with fellows:
     But let me warn you to believe
     A truth, for which your soul should grieve;
     That should you live to see the day,
     When Stella's locks must all be gray,
     When age must print a furrow'd trace
     On every feature of her face;
     Though you, and all your senseless tribe,
     Could Art, or Time, or Nature bribe,
     To make you look like Beauty's Queen,
     And hold for ever at fifteen;
     No bloom of youth can ever blind
     The cracks and wrinkles of your mind:
     All men of sense will pass your door,
     And crowd to Stella's at four-score.

     [Footnote 1: Collated with Stella's own copy transcribed in her
     volume.—Forster.]

     [Footnote 2: Rascal.—Stella.]

     [Footnote 3: They.—Stella.]

     1720

     As, when a lofty pile is raised,
     We never hear the workmen praised,
     Who bring the lime, or place the stones.
     But all admire Inigo Jones:
     So, if this pile of scatter'd rhymes
     Should be approved in aftertimes;
     If it both pleases and endures,
     The merit and the praise are yours.
       Thou, Stella, wert no longer young,
     When first for thee my harp was strung,
     Without one word of Cupid's darts,
     Of killing eyes, or bleeding hearts;
     With friendship and esteem possest,
     I ne'er admitted Love a guest.
       In all the habitudes of life,
     The friend, the mistress, and the wife,
     Variety we still pursue,
     In pleasure seek for something new;
     Or else, comparing with the rest,
     Take comfort that our own is best;
     The best we value by the worst,
     As tradesmen show their trash at first;
     But his pursuits are at an end,
     Whom Stella chooses for a friend.
     A poet starving in a garret,
     Conning all topics like a parrot,
     Invokes his mistress and his Muse,
     And stays at home for want of shoes:
     Should but his Muse descending drop
     A slice of bread and mutton-chop;
     Or kindly, when his credit's out,
     Surprise him with a pint of stout;
     Or patch his broken stocking soles;
     Or send him in a peck of coals;
     Exalted in his mighty mind,
     He flies and leaves the stars behind;
     Counts all his labours amply paid,
     Adores her for the timely aid.
       Or, should a porter make inquiries
     For Chloe, Sylvia, Phillis, Iris;
     Be told the lodging, lane, and sign,
     The bowers that hold those nymphs divine;
     Fair Chloe would perhaps be found
     With footmen tippling under ground;
     The charming Sylvia beating flax,
     Her shoulders mark'd with bloody tracks;[1]
     Bright Phillis mending ragged smocks:
     And radiant Iris in the pox.
     These are the goddesses enroll'd
     In Curll's collection, new and old,
     Whose scoundrel fathers would not know 'em,
     If they should meet them in a poem.
       True poets can depress and raise,
     Are lords of infamy and praise;
     They are not scurrilous in satire,
     Nor will in panegyric flatter.
     Unjustly poets we asperse;
     Truth shines the brighter clad in verse,
     And all the fictions they pursue
     Do but insinuate what is true.
       Now, should my praises owe their truth
     To beauty, dress, or paint, or youth,
     What stoics call without our power,
     They could not be ensured an hour;
     'Twere grafting on an annual stock,
     That must our expectation mock,
     And, making one luxuriant shoot,
     Die the next year for want of root:
     Before I could my verses bring,
     Perhaps you're quite another thing.
       So Mfvius, when he drain'd his skull
     To celebrate some suburb trull,
     His similes in order set,
     And every crambo[2] he could get;
     Had gone through all the common-places
     Worn out by wits, who rhyme on faces;
     Before he could his poem close,
     The lovely nymph had lost her nose.
       Your virtues safely I commend;
     They on no accidents depend:
     Let malice look with all her eyes,
     She dares not say the poet lies.
       Stella, when you these lines transcribe,
     Lest you should take them for a bribe,
     Resolved to mortify your pride,
     I'll here expose your weaker side.
       Your spirits kindle to a flame,
     Moved by the lightest touch of blame;
     And when a friend in kindness tries
     To show you where your error lies,
     Conviction does but more incense;
     Perverseness is your whole defence;
     Truth, judgment, wit, give place to spite,
     Regardless both of wrong and right;
     Your virtues all suspended wait,
     Till time has open'd reason's gate;
     And, what is worse, your passion bends
     Its force against your nearest friends,
     Which manners, decency, and pride,
     Have taught from you the world to hide;
     In vain; for see, your friend has brought
     To public light your only fault;
     And yet a fault we often find
     Mix'd in a noble, generous mind:
     And may compare to Ftna's fire,
     Which, though with trembling, all admire;
     The heat that makes the summit glow,
     Enriching all the vales below.
     Those who, in warmer climes, complain
     From Phoebus' rays they suffer pain,
     Must own that pain is largely paid
     By generous wines beneath a shade.
       Yet, when I find your passions rise,
     And anger sparkling in your eyes,
     I grieve those spirits should be spent,
     For nobler ends by nature meant.
     One passion, with a different turn,
     Makes wit inflame, or anger burn:
     So the sun's heat, with different powers,
     Ripens the grape, the liquor sours:
     Thus Ajax, when with rage possest,
     By Pallas breathed into his breast,
     His valour would no more employ,
     Which might alone have conquer'd Troy;
     But, blinded by resentment, seeks
     For vengeance on his friends the Greeks.
       You think this turbulence of blood
     From stagnating preserves the flood,
     Which, thus fermenting by degrees,
     Exalts the spirits, sinks the lees.
     Stella, for once you reason wrong;
     For, should this ferment last too long,
     By time subsiding, you may find
     Nothing but acid left behind;
     From passion you may then be freed,
     When peevishness and spleen succeed.
     Say, Stella, when you copy next,
     Will you keep strictly to the text?
     Dare you let these reproaches stand,
     And to your failing set your hand?
     Or, if these lines your anger fire,
     Shall they in baser flames expire?
     Whene'er they burn, if burn they must,
     They'll prove my accusation just.

     [Footnote 1: At Bridewell; see vol. i, "A Beautiful Young Nymph," at
     p. 201.—W. E. B.]

     [Footnote 3: A cant word for a rhyme.—W. E. B.]

     1720

     Pallas, observing Stella's wit
     Was more than for her sex was fit,
     And that her beauty, soon or late,
     Might breed confusion in the state,
     In high concern for human kind,
     Fix'd honour in her infant mind.
       But (not in wrangling to engage
     With such a stupid, vicious age)
     If honour I would here define,
     It answers faith in things divine.
     As natural life the body warms,
     And, scholars teach, the soul informs,
     So honour animates the whole,
     And is the spirit of the soul.
       Those numerous virtues which the tribe
     Of tedious moralists describe,
     And by such various titles call,
     True honour comprehends them all.
     Let melancholy rule supreme,
     Choler preside, or blood, or phlegm,
     It makes no difference in the case,
     Nor is complexion honour's place.
       But, lest we should for honour take
     The drunken quarrels of a rake:
     Or think it seated in a scar,
     Or on a proud triumphal car;
     Or in the payment of a debt
     We lose with sharpers at piquet;
     Or when a whore, in her vocation,
     Keeps punctual to an assignation;
     Or that on which his lordship swears,
     When vulgar knaves would lose their ears;
     Let Stella's fair example preach
     A lesson she alone can teach.
       In points of honour to be tried,
     All passions must be laid aside:
     Ask no advice, but think alone;
     Suppose the question not your own.
     How shall I act, is not the case;
     But how would Brutus in my place?
     In such a case would Cato bleed?
     And how would Socrates proceed?
       Drive all objections from your mind,
     Else you relapse to human kind:
     Ambition, avarice, and lust,
     A factious rage, and breach of trust,
     And flattery tipt with nauseous fleer,
     And guilty shame, and servile fear,
     Envy, and cruelty, and pride,
     Will in your tainted heart preside.
       Heroes and heroines of old,
     By honour only were enroll'd
     Among their brethren in the skies,
     To which (though late) shall Stella rise.
     Ten thousand oaths upon record
     Are not so sacred as her word:
     The world shall in its atoms end,
     Ere Stella can deceive a friend.
     By honour seated in her breast
     She still determines what is best:
     What indignation in her mind
     Against enslavers of mankind!
     Base kings, and ministers of state,
     Eternal objects of her hate!
     She thinks that nature ne'er design'd
     Courage to man alone confined.
     Can cowardice her sex adorn,
     Which most exposes ours to scorn?
     She wonders where the charm appears
     In Florimel's affected fears;
     For Stella never learn'd the art
     At proper times to scream and start;
     Nor calls up all the house at night,
     And swears she saw a thing in white.
     Doll never flies to cut her lace,
     Or throw cold water in her face,
     Because she heard a sudden drum,
     Or found an earwig in a plum.
       Her hearers are amazed from whence
     Proceeds that fund of wit and sense;
     Which, though her modesty would shroud,
     Breaks like the sun behind a cloud;
     While gracefulness its art conceals,
     And yet through every motion steals.
       Say, Stella, was Prometheus blind,
     And, forming you, mistook your kind?
     No; 'twas for you alone he stole
     The fire that forms a manly soul;
     Then, to complete it every way,
     He moulded it with female clay:
     To that you owe the nobler flame,
     To this the beauty of your frame.
       How would Ingratitude delight,
     And how would Censure glut her spite,
     If I should Stella's kindness hide
     In silence, or forget with pride!
     When on my sickly couch I lay,
     Impatient both of night and day,
     Lamenting in unmanly strains,
     Call'd every power to ease my pains;
     Then Stella ran to my relief,
     With cheerful face and inward grief;
     And, though by Heaven's severe decree
     She suffers hourly more than me,
     No cruel master could require,
     From slaves employ'd for daily hire,
     What Stella, by her friendship warm'd
     With vigour and delight perform'd:
     My sinking spirits now supplies
     With cordials in her hands and eyes:
     Now with a soft and silent tread
     Unheard she moves about my bed.
     I see her taste each nauseous draught,
     And so obligingly am caught;
     I bless the hand from whence they came,
     Nor dare distort my face for shame.
       Best pattern of true friends! beware;
     You pay too dearly for your care,
     If, while your tenderness secures
     My life, it must endanger yours;
     For such a fool was never found,
     Who pull'd a palace to the ground,
     Only to have the ruins made
     Materials for a house decay'd.

     St. Patrick's Dean, your country's pride,
     My early and my only guide,
     Let me among the rest attend,
     Your pupil and your humble friend,
     To celebrate in female strains
     The day that paid your mother's pains;
     Descend to take that tribute due
     In gratitude alone to you.
       When men began to call me fair,
     You interposed your timely care:
     You early taught me to despise
     The ogling of a coxcomb's eyes;
     Show'd where my judgment was misplaced;
     Refined my fancy and my taste.
       Behold that beauty just decay'd,
     Invoking art to nature's aid:
     Forsook by her admiring train,
     She spreads her tatter'd nets in vain;
     Short was her part upon the stage;
     Went smoothly on for half a page;
     Her bloom was gone, she wanted art,
     As the scene changed, to change her part;
     She, whom no lover could resist,
     Before the second act was hiss'd.
     Such is the fate of female race
     With no endowments but a face;
     Before the thirtieth year of life,
     A maid forlorn, or hated wife.
       Stella to you, her tutor, owes
     That she has ne'er resembled those:
     Nor was a burden to mankind
     With half her course of years behind.
     You taught how I might youth prolong,
     By knowing what was right and wrong;
     How from my heart to bring supplies
     Of lustre to my fading eyes;
     How soon a beauteous mind repairs
     The loss of changed or falling hairs;
     How wit and virtue from within
     Send out a smoothness o'er the skin:
     Your lectures could my fancy fix,
     And I can please at thirty-six.
     The sight of Chloe at fifteen,
     Coquetting, gives not me the spleen;
     The idol now of every fool
     Till time shall make their passions cool;
     Then tumbling down Time's steepy hill,
     While Stella holds her station still.
     O! turn your precepts into laws,
     Redeem the women's ruin'd cause,
     Retrieve lost empire to our sex,
     That men may bow their rebel necks.
       Long be the day that gave you birth
     Sacred to friendship, wit, and mirth;
     Late dying may you cast a shred
     Of your rich mantle o'er my head;
     To bear with dignity my sorrow,
     One day alone, then die to-morrow.

     While, Stella, to your lasting praise
     The Muse her annual tribute pays,
     While I assign myself a task
     Which you expect, but scorn to ask;
     If I perform this task with pain,
     Let me of partial fate complain;
     You every year the debt enlarge,
     I grow less equal to the charge:
     In you each virtue brighter shines,
     But my poetic vein declines;
     My harp will soon in vain be strung,
     And all your virtues left unsung.
     For none among the upstart race
     Of poets dare assume my place;
     Your worth will be to them unknown,
     They must have Stellas of their own;
     And thus, my stock of wit decay'd,
     I dying leave the debt unpaid,
     Unless Delany, as my heir,
     Will answer for the whole arrear.

     Amphora, quae moestum linquis, laetumque revises
       Arentem dominum, sit tibi terra levis.
     Tu quoque depositum serves, neve opprime, marmor;
       Amphora non meruit tam pretiosa mori.

     Hoc tumulata jacet proles Lenaea sepulchro,
     Immortale genus, nee peritura jacet;
     Quin oritura iterum, matris concreditur alvo:
     Bis natum referunt te quoque, Bacche Pater.

     A GREAT BOTTLE OF WINE, LONG BURIED,
     BEING THAT DAY DUG UP. 1722-3

     Resolv'd my annual verse to pay,
     By duty bound, on Stella's day,
     Furnish'd with paper, pens, and ink,
     I gravely sat me down to think:
     I bit my nails, and scratch'd my head,
     But found my wit and fancy fled:
     Or if, with more than usual pain,
     A thought came slowly from my brain,
     It cost me Lord knows how much time
     To shape it into sense and rhyme:
     And, what was yet a greater curse,
     Long thinking made my fancy worse.
       Forsaken by th'inspiring Nine,
     I waited at Apollo's shrine:
     I told him what the world would say,
     If Stella were unsung to-day:
     How I should hide my head for shame,
     When both the Jacks and Robin came;
     How Ford would frown, how Jim would leer,
     How Sheridan the rogue would sneer,
     And swear it does not always follow,
     That semel'n anno ridet Apollo.
     I have assur'd them twenty times,
     That Phoebus help'd me in my rhymes;
     Phoebus inspired me from above,
     And he and I were hand and glove.
     But, finding me so dull and dry since,
     They'll call it all poetic license;
     And when I brag of aid divine,
     Think Eusden's[1] right as good as mine.
       Nor do I ask for Stella's sake;
     'Tis my own credit lies at stake:
     And Stella will be sung, while I
     Can only be a stander by.
       Apollo, having thought a little,
     Return'd this answer to a tittle.
       Though you should live like old Methusalem,
     I furnish hints and you shall use all 'em,
     You yearly sing as she grows old,
     You'd leave her virtues half untold.
     But, to say truth, such dulness reigns,
     Through the whole set of Irish deans,
     I'm daily stunn'd with such a medley,
     Dean White, Dean Daniel, and Dean Smedley,
     That, let what dean soever come,
     My orders are, I'm not at home;
     And if your voice had not been loud,
     You must have pass'd among the crowd.
       But now, your danger to prevent,
     You must apply to Mrs. Brent;[2]
     For she, as priestess, knows the rites
     Wherein the god of earth delights.
     First, nine ways looking,[3] let her stand
     With an old poker in her hand;
     Let her describe a circle round
     In Saunders'[4] cellar on the ground:
     A spade let prudent Archy[5] hold,
     And with discretion dig the mould.
     Let Stella look with watchful eye,
     Rebecca,[6] Ford, and Grattans by.
       Behold the bottle, where it lies
     With neck elated toward the skies!
     The god of winds and god of fire
     Did to its wondrous birth conspire;
     And Bacchus for the poet's use
     Pour'd in a strong inspiring juice.
     See! as you raise it from its tomb,
     It drags behind a spacious womb,
     And in the spacious womb contains
     A sov'reign med'cine for the brains.
       You'll find it soon, if fate consents;
     If not, a thousand Mrs. Brents,
     Ten thousand Archys, arm'd with spades,
     May dig in vain to Pluto's shades.
       From thence a plenteous draught infuse,
     And boldly then invoke the Muse;
     But first let Robert[7] on his knees
     With caution drain it from the lees;
     The Muse will at your call appear,
     With Stella's praise to crown the year.

     [Footnote 1: The Poet Laureate.]

     [Footnote 2: "Mrs. Brent, my housekeeper, famous in print for digging out
     the great bottle." "I dine tjte a tjte five days a week with my old
     presbyterian housekeeper whom I call Sir Robert." Swift to Pope. Pope's
     "Works," edit. Elwin and Courthope, vii, pp. 145, 212.—W. E. B.]

     [Footnote 3: She had a cast in her eyes.—Swift.]

     [Footnote 4: The butler.]

     [Footnote 5: The footman.]

     [Footnote 6: Mrs. Dingley.]

     [Footnote 7: The valet.]

     A HOUSE OF CHARLES FORD, ESQ., NEAR DUBLIN

     1723

       —cuicumque nocere volebat,
     Vestimenta dabat pretiosa.[1]

     Don Carlos, in a merry spight,
     Did Stella to his house invite:
     He entertain'd her half a year
     With generous wines and costly cheer.
     Don Carlos made her chief director,
     That she might o'er the servants hector.
     In half a week the dame grew nice,
     Got all things at the highest price:
     Now at the table head she sits,
     Presented with the nicest bits:
     She look'd on partridges with scorn,
     Except they tasted of the corn:
     A haunch of ven'son made her sweat,
     Unless it had the right fumette.
     Don Carlos earnestly would beg,
     "Dear Madam, try this pigeon's leg;"
     Was happy, when he could prevail
     To make her only touch a quail.
     Through candle-light she view'd the wine,
     To see that ev'ry glass was fine.
     At last, grown prouder than the devil
     With feeding high, and treatment civil,
     Don Carlos now began to find
     His malice work as he design'd.
     The winter sky began to frown:
     Poor Stella must pack off to town;
     From purling streams and fountains bubbling,
     To Liffey's stinking tide in Dublin:
     From wholesome exercise and air
     To sossing in an easy-chair:
     From stomach sharp, and hearty feeding,
     To piddle[2] like a lady breeding:
     From ruling there the household singly.
     To be directed here by Dingley:[3]
     From every day a lordly banquet,
     To half a joint, and God be thank it:
     From every meal Pontac in plenty,
     To half a pint one day in twenty:
     From Ford attending at her call,
     To visits of Archdeacon Wall:
     From Ford, who thinks of nothing mean,
     To the poor doings of the Dean:
     From growing richer with good cheer,
     To running out by starving here.
       But now arrives the dismal day;
     She must return to Ormond Quay.[4]
     The coachman stopt; she look'd, and swore
     The rascal had mistook the door:
     At coming in, you saw her stoop;
     The entry brush'd against her hoop:
     Each moment rising in her airs,
     She curst the narrow winding stairs:
     Began a thousand faults to spy;
     The ceiling hardly six feet high;
     The smutty wainscot full of cracks:
     And half the chairs with broken backs:
     Her quarter's out at Lady-day;
     She vows she will no longer stay
     In lodgings like a poor Grisette,
     While there are houses to be let.
       Howe'er, to keep her spirits up,
     She sent for company to sup:
     When all the while you might remark,
     She strove in vain to ape Wood Park.
     Two bottles call'd for, (half her store,
     The cupboard could contain but four:)
     A supper worthy of herself,
     Five nothings in five plates of delf.
       Thus for a week the farce went on;
     When, all her country savings gone,
     She fell into her former scene,
     Small beer, a herring, and the Dean.
       Thus far in jest: though now, I fear,
     You think my jesting too severe;
     But poets, when a hint is new,
     Regard not whether false or true:
     Yet raillery gives no offence,
     Where truth has not the least pretence;
     Nor can be more securely placed
     Than on a nymph of Stella's taste.
     I must confess your wine and vittle
     I was too hard upon a little:
     Your table neat, your linen fine;
     And, though in miniature, you shine:
     Yet, when you sigh to leave Wood Park,
     The scene, the welcome, and the spark,
     To languish in this odious town,
     And pull your haughty stomach down,
     We think you quite mistake the case,
     The virtue lies not in the place:
     For though my raillery were true,
     A cottage is Wood Park with you.

     [Footnote 1: Horat., "Epist.," i, 18, 31.—W. E. B.]

     [Footnote 2: In its proper sense—to pick at table, to feed squeamishly.
       "With entremets to piddle with at hand."
       BYRON, Don Juan.—W. E. B.]

     [Footnote 3: The constant companion of Stella.]

     [Footnote 4: Where the two ladies lodged.]

     1723-4

     Returning Janus[2] now prepares,
     For Bec, a new supply of cares,
     Sent in a bag to Dr. Swift,
     Who thus displays the new-year's gift.
       First, this large parcel brings you tidings
     Of our good Dean's eternal chidings;
     Of Nelly's pertness, Robin's leasings,
     And Sheridan's perpetual teazings.
     This box is cramm'd on every side
     With Stella's magisterial pride.
     Behold a cage with sparrows fill'd,
     First to be fondled, then be kill'd.
     Now to this hamper I invite you,
     With six imagined cares to fright you.
     Here in this bundle Janus sends
     Concerns by thousands for your friends.
     And here's a pair of leathern pokes,
     To hold your cares for other folks.
     Here from this barrel you may broach
     A peck of troubles for a coach.
     This ball of wax your ears will darken,
     Still to be curious, never hearken.
     Lest you the town may have less trouble in
     Bring all your Quilca's [3] cares to Dublin,
     For which he sends this empty sack;
     And so take all upon your back.

     [Footnote 1: Mrs. Rebecca Dingley, Stella's friend and companion.]

     [Footnote 2: The sun god represented with two faces, one in front, and
     one behind, to whom the new year was sacred.—W. E. B.]

     [Footnote 3: Country-house of Dr. Sheridan.]

     A SONG

     To the tune of "Ye Commons and Peers."

           Dingley and Brent,
           Wherever they went,
     Ne'er minded a word that was spoken;
           Whatever was said,
           They ne'er troubled their head,
     But laugh'd at their own silly joking.

           Should Solomon wise
           In majesty rise,
     And show them his wit and his learning;
           They never would hear,
           But turn the deaf ear,
     As a matter they had no concern in.

           You tell a good jest,
           And please all the rest;
     Comes Dingley, and asks you, what was it?
           And, curious to know,
           Away she will go
     To seek an old rag in the closet.

     [Footnote 1: Dr. Swift's housekeeper.]

     MARCH 13, 1723-4,
     BUT NOT ON THE SUBJECT, WHEN I WAS SICK IN BED

     Tormented with incessant pains,
     Can I devise poetic strains?
     Time was, when I could yearly pay
     My verse to Stella's native day:
     But now unable grown to write,
     I grieve she ever saw the light.
     Ungrateful! since to her I owe
     That I these pains can undergo.
     She tends me like an humble slave;
     And, when indecently I rave,
     When out my brutish passions break,
     With gall in every word I speak,
     She with soft speech my anguish cheers,
     Or melts my passions down with tears;
     Although 'tis easy to descry
     She wants assistance more than I;
     Yet seems to feel my pains alone,
     And is a stoic in her own.
     When, among scholars, can we find
     So soft and yet so firm a mind?
     All accidents of life conspire
     To raise up Stella's virtue higher;
     Or else to introduce the rest
     Which had been latent in her breast.
     Her firmness who could e'er have known,
     Had she not evils of her own?
     Her kindness who could ever guess,
     Had not her friends been in distress?
     Whatever base returns you find
     From me, dear Stella, still be kind.
     In your own heart you'll reap the fruit,
     Though I continue still a brute.
     But, when I once am out of pain,
     I promise to be good again;
     Meantime, your other juster friends
     Shall for my follies make amends;
     So may we long continue thus,
     Admiring you, you pitying us.

     If it be true, celestial powers,
     That you have form'd me fair,
     And yet, in all my vainest hours,
     My mind has been my care:
     Then, in return, I beg this grace,
     As you were ever kind,
     What envious Time takes from my face
     Bestow upon my mind!

     The Scottish hinds, too poor to house
     In frosty nights their starving cows,
     While not a blade of grass or hay
     Appears from Michaelmas to May,
     Must let their cattle range in vain
     For food along the barren plain:
     Meagre and lank with fasting grown,
     And nothing left but skin and bone;
     Exposed to want, and wind, and weather,
     They just keep life and soul together,
     Till summer showers and evening's dew
     Again the verdant glebe renew;
     And, as the vegetables rise,
     The famish'd cow her want supplies;
     Without an ounce of last year's flesh;
     Whate'er she gains is young and fresh;
     Grows plump and round, and full of mettle,
     As rising from Medea's [1] kettle.
     With youth and beauty to enchant
     Europa's[2] counterfeit gallant.
       Why, Stella, should you knit your brow,
     If I compare you to a cow?
     'Tis just the case; for you have fasted
     So long, till all your flesh is wasted;
     And must against the warmer days
     Be sent to Quilca down to graze;
     Where mirth, and exercise, and air,
     Will soon your appetite repair:
     The nutriment will from within,
     Round all your body, plump your skin;
     Will agitate the lazy flood,
     And fill your veins with sprightly blood.
     Nor flesh nor blood will be the same
     Nor aught of Stella but the name:
     For what was ever understood,
     By human kind, but flesh and blood?
     And if your flesh and blood be new,
     You'll be no more the former you;
     But for a blooming nymph will pass,
     Just fifteen, coming summer's grass,
     Your jetty locks with garlands crown'd:
     While all the squires for nine miles round,
     Attended by a brace of curs,
     With jockey boots and silver spurs,
     No less than justices o' quorum,
     Their cow-boys bearing cloaks before 'em,
     Shall leave deciding broken pates,
     To kiss your steps at Quilca gates.
     But, lest you should my skill disgrace,
     Come back before you're out of case;
     For if to Michaelmas you stay,
     The new-born flesh will melt away;
     The 'squires in scorn will fly the house
     For better game, and look for grouse;
     But here, before the frost can mar it,
     We'll make it firm with beef and claret.

     [Footnote 1: The celebrated sorceress, daughter of Fetes, King of
     Colchis, who assisted Jason in obtaining possession of the Golden
     Fleece.—W. E. B.]

     [Footnote 2: Carried off by Jupiter under the form of a bull. Ovid,
     "Met." ii, 836.]

     As when a beauteous nymph decays,
     We say she's past her dancing days;
     So poets lose their feet by time,
     And can no longer dance in rhyme.
     Your annual bard had rather chose
     To celebrate your birth in prose:
     Yet merry folks, who want by chance
     A pair to make a country dance,
     Call the old housekeeper, and get her
     To fill a place for want of better:
     While Sheridan is off the hooks,
     And friend Delany at his books,
     That Stella may avoid disgrace,
     Once more the Dean supplies their place.
       Beauty and wit, too sad a truth!
     Have always been confined to youth;
     The god of wit and beauty's queen,
     He twenty-one and she fifteen,
     No poet ever sweetly sung,
     Unless he were, like Phoebus, young;
     Nor ever nymph inspired to rhyme,
     Unless, like Venus, in her prime.
     At fifty-six, if this be true,
     Am I a poet fit for you?
     Or, at the age of forty-three,
     Are you a subject fit for me?
     Adieu! bright wit, and radiant eyes!
     You must be grave and I be wise.
     Our fate in vain we would oppose:
     But I'll be still your friend in prose:
     Esteem and friendship to express,
     Will not require poetic dress;
     And if the Muse deny her aid
     To have them sung, they may be said.
       But, Stella, say, what evil tongue
     Reports you are no longer young;
     That Time sits with his scythe to mow
     Where erst sat Cupid with his bow;
     That half your locks are turn'd to gray?
     I'll ne'er believe a word they say.
     'Tis true, but let it not be known,
     My eyes are somewhat dimmish grown;
     For nature, always in the right,
     To your decays adapts my sight;
     And wrinkles undistinguished pass,
     For I'm ashamed to use a glass:
     And till I see them with these eyes,
     Whoever says you have them, lies.
       No length of time can make you quit
     Honour and virtue, sense and wit;
     Thus you may still be young to me,
     While I can better hear than see.
     O ne'er may Fortune show her spite,
     To make me deaf, and mend my sight![1]

     [Footnote 1: Now deaf, 1740.—Swift. This pathetic note was in Swift's
     writing in his own copy of the "Miscellanies," edit.
     1727-32.—W. E. B.]

     This day, dear Bec, is thy nativity;
     Had Fate a luckier one, she'd give it ye.
     She chose a thread of greatest length,
     And doubly twisted it for strength:
     Nor will be able with her shears
     To cut it off these forty years.
     Then who says care will kill a cat?
     Rebecca shows they're out in that.
     For she, though overrun with care,
     Continues healthy, fat, and fair.
       As, if the gout should seize the head,
     Doctors pronounce the patient dead;
     But, if they can, by all their arts,
     Eject it to the extremest parts,
     They give the sick man joy, and praise
     The gout that will prolong his days.
     Rebecca thus I gladly greet,
     Who drives her cares to hands and feet:
     For, though philosophers maintain
     The limbs are guided by the brain,
     Quite contrary Rebecca's led;
     Her hands and feet conduct her head;
     By arbitrary power convey her,
     She ne'er considers why or where:
     Her hands may meddle, feet may wander,
     Her head is but a mere by-stander:
     And all her bustling but supplies
     The part of wholesome exercise.
     Thus nature has resolved to pay her
     The cat's nine lives, and eke the care.
       Long may she live, and help her friends
     Whene'er it suits her private ends;
     Domestic business never mind
     Till coffee has her stomach lined;
     But, when her breakfast gives her courage,
     Then think on Stella's chicken porridge:
     I mean when Tiger[2]has been served,
     Or else poor Stella may be starved.
       May Bec have many an evening nap,
     With Tiger slabbering in her lap;
     But always take a special care
     She does not overset the chair;
     Still be she curious, never hearken
     To any speech but Tiger's barking!
       And when she's in another scene,
     Stella long dead, but first the Dean,
     May fortune and her coffee get her
     Companions that will please her better!
     Whole afternoons will sit beside her,
     Nor for neglects or blunders chide her.
     A goodly set as can be found
     Of hearty gossips prating round;
     Fresh from a wedding or a christening,
     To teach her ears the art of listening,
     And please her more to hear them tattle,
     Than the Dean storm, or Stella rattle.
       Late be her death, one gentle nod,
     When Hermes,[3] waiting with his rod,
     Shall to Elysian fields invite her,
     Where there will be no cares to fright her!