'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.

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So Mævius, when he drain'd his scull

To celebrate some suburb trull,

His similies in order set,

And ev'ry crambo he could get,

Had gone thro' all the common places
Worn out by wits who rhyme on faces,
Before he could his poem close

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The lovely nymph had lost her nose.
Your virtues safely I commend

They on no accident 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,
Resolv'd to mortify your pride,
I'll here expose your weaker side.

Your spirits kindle to a flame,
Mov'd with the lightest touch of blame;
And when a friend in kindness tries
To shew you where the 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 hath 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 you from the world to hide :
In vain; for see, your friend hath brought
To public light your only fault;

And yet a fault we often find

Mix'd in a noble gen'rous mind,
And may compare to Ætna's fire,
Which, tho' 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 gen'rous 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 diffrent turn
Makes wit inflame or anger burn :
So the sun's heat, with diff'rent pow'rs,
Ripens the grape, the liquor sours.
Thus Ajax, when with rage possest,
By Pallas breath'd 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 no 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 i

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?

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Whene'er they burn, if burn they must,

They'll prove my accusation just.

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TO STELLA, ON HER BIRTHDAY.

Written anno 1721,-2.

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 i

If I perform this task with pain,
Let me of partial Fate complain;
You ev'ry 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

as my heir,

Will answer for the whole arrear.

STELLA'S BIRTHDAY, 1722,

ΤΟ

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A great Bottle of wine, long buried, being that day dug up.

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 ;

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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;

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How I should hide my head for shame,
When both the Jacks and Robin came;
How Ford would frown, how Jim would leer,

How Sh-n, the

rogue,

would sneer,

And swear it would not always follow

That semel in anno ridet Apollo ;

I have assur'd them twenty times
That Phoebus help'd me in my rhymes;
Phoebus inspir'd me from above,
And he and Į 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,

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Think Eusden's right as good as mine.

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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.

“Tho' you should live like old Methusalem,

"I furnish hints, and you should use all 'em, "You yearly sing as she grows old,

You'd leave her virtues half untold:

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