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POE M S

By DR. S W IF T.

STELLA'S BIRTH-DAY,
March 13, 1726.

THIS day, whate'er the Fates decree,
Shall still be kept with joy by me:

This day then let us not be told,
That you are fick, and I grown old;
Nor think on our approaching ills,
And talk of fpectacles and pills :
To-morrow will be time enough
To hear fuch mortifying stuff.
Yet, fince from reason may be brought
A better and more pleafing thought,
Which can, in fpite of all decays,
Support a few remaining days;
From not the gravest of Divines
Accept for once fome ferious lines.

Although we now can form no more
Long fchemes of life, as heretofore;
Yet you, while time is running faft,
Can look with joy on what is past.
VOL. II.

B

Were

Were future happiness and pain
A mere contrivance of the brain
As atheists argue, to entice
And fit their profelytes for vice
(The only comfort they propose,
To have companions in their woes):
Grant this the cafe; yet fure 'tis hard
That virtue, ftyl'd its own reward,
And by all fages understood
To be the chief of human good,
Should acting die; nor leave behind
Some lafting pleasure in the mind,
Which by remembrance will affwage
Grief, fickness, poverty, and age,
And strongly shoot a radiant dart
To fhine through life's declining part.
Say, Stella; feel you no content,
Reflecting on a life well-fpent?
Your skilful hand employ'd to fave
Eefpairing wretches from the grave;

And then fupporting with ftore

your

Those whom you dragg'd from death before?
So Providence on mortals waits,
Preferving what it first creates.
Your generous boldness to defend
An innocent and abfent friend;

That

which can make you just courage To merit humbled in the duft; The deteftation you exprefs

For vice in all its glittering dress;

That

That patience under tottering pain,
Where ftubborn Stoicks would complain;
Muft thefe like empty shadows pass,
Or forms reflected from a glass?
Or mere chimeras in the mind,

That fly, and leave no marks behind▸
Does not the body thrive and grow
By food of twenty years ago?
And, had it not been still supply'd.
It must a thousand times have died.
Then who with reason can maintain
That no effects of food remain ?
And is not virtue in mankind
The nutriment that feeds the mind;
Upheld by each good action past,
And still continued by the last?
Then, who with reason can pretend
That all effects of virtue end?

Believe me, Stella, when you fhow
That true contempt for things below,
Nor prize your life for other ends
Than merely to oblige your friends;
Your former actions claim their part,
And join to fortify your heart.
For Virtue in her daily race,

Like Janus, bears a double face; zna
Looks back with joy where fhe has gone,
And therefore goes with courage on:
She at your fickly couch will wait,
And guide you to a better ftate.

O then, whatever Heaven intends,
Take pity on your pitying friends!
Nor let your ills affect your mind,
To fancy they can be unkind.
Me, furely me, you ought to spare,
Who gladly would your fuffering fhare;
Or give my fcrap of life to you,
And think it far beneath your due ;
You, to whofe care fo oft' I owe
That I'm alive to tell you fo.

HORACE, BOOK I. ODE XIV. Paraphrafed, and infcribed to IRELAND. 1726.

THE INSCRIPTION.

Poor floating ifle, tost on ill-fortune's waves,
Ordain'd by fate to be the land of flaves;
Shall moving Delos now deep-rooted stand ;*
Thou, fix'd of old, be now the moving land?
Although the metaphor be worn and ftale,
Betwixt a state, and veffel under fail;
Let me fuppofe thee for a ship a-while,
And thus addrefs thee in the failor's style:

UNHAPPY hip, thou art return'd in vain

New wayes fhall drive thee to the deep again.

Look to thyself, and be no more the sport
Of giddy winds, but make fome friendly port.

Loft

Loft are thy oars, that us'd thy course to guide,
Like faithful counfellors on either fide.
Thy mast, which like fome aged patriot stood
The fingle pillar for his country's good,
To lead thee, as a staff directs the blind,
Behold it cracks by yon rough eastern wind.
Your cables burst, and you must quickly feel
The waves impetuous enter at your keel.
Thus commonwealths receive a foreign yoke,
When the strong cords of union once are broke.
Torn by a fudden tempeft is thy fail,
Expanded to invite a milder gale.

As when fome writer in a public cause
His pen, to fave a finking nation, draws,
While all is calm, his arguments prevail;
The people's voice expands his paper-fail;
Till power, discharging all her ftormy bags,
Flutters the feeble pamphlet into rags.

The nation fcar'd, the author doom'd to death,
Who fondly put his truft in popular breath.
A larger facrifice in vain you vow;

There's not a power above will help you now:
A nation thus, who oft' Heaven's call neglects,
In vain from injur'd Heaven relief expects.
"Twill not avail, when thy ftrong fides are broke,
That thy descent is from the British oak;
Or, when your name and family you boast,
From fleets triumphant o'er the Gallic coaft.
Such was Ierne's claim, as juft as thine,
Her fons defcended from the British line;