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.

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 globe 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,

With youth and beauty to enchant
Europa's 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 humankind, 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 'squire 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.

STELLA'S BIRTIIDAY. 1724-5.
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

While Sheridan is of the Locks,
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!
Hare always been erined to youth;
The god of wit and beauty's queen,
He twenty-one and she ffteen,
No poet ever sweetly song,
Unless he were, like Phobos, young;
Nor ever nymph inspired to rhyme,
Unless, like Venus, in her prize.
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 undistinguish'd 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
Honor 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!

TO STELLA.

WRITTEN ON THE DAY OF HER BIRTH, 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 on 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?

Iler 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.

DEATH AND DAPHNE.

TO AN AGREEABLE YOUNG LADY, BUT EXTREMELY LEAN. 1730.

DEATH went upon a solemn day
At Pluto's hall his court to pay;
The phantom having humbly kiss'd

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 undistinguish'd 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
Honor 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!