But for a blooming nymph will pass,
Juft fifteen, coming fummer's grafs,
Your jetty locks with garlands crown'd :
While all the 'fquires for nine miles round,
Attended by a brace of curs,
With jocky boots and silver spurs,
No less than juftices o'quorum,
Their cow-boys bearing cloaks before 'em,
Shall leave deciding broken pates,
To kifs your steps at Quilca gates.
But, left you fhould my skill difgrace,
Come back before you 're out of case:
For if to Michaelmas you stay,
The new-born flesh will melt away;
The 'fquire in fcorn will fly the house
For better game, and look for grouse';
But here, before the froft can mar it,
We'll make it firm with beef and claret.
STELLA'S BIRTH-DAY. 1724-5.
AS, when a beauteous nymph decays,
We fay, the 's paft her dancing-days;
poets lose their feet by time,
And can no longer dance in rhyme.
Your annual bard had rather chofe
To celebrate your birth in profe':
Yet merry folks, who want by chance
A pair to make a country-dance;
Call the old house-keeper, 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 difgrace,
Once more the Dean supplies their place.
Beauty and wit, too fad a truth!
Have always been confin'd to youth;
The god of wit and beauty's queen,
He twenty-one, and the fifteen.
No poet ever sweetly fung,
Unless he were, like Phoebus, yoùng;
Nor ever nymph inspir'd to rhyme,
Unless, like Venus, in her prime.
At fifty-fix, if this be true,
Am I a poet fit for you?
Or, at the age of forty-three,
Are you a fubject 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 be ftill your friend in profe:
Efteem and friendship to express,
Will not require poetic drefs;
And, if the Muse deny her aid
To have them Jung, they may be faid.
But, Stella, fay, what evil tongue
Reports you are no longer young;
That Time fits, with his fcythe, to mow
Where erft fat Cupid with his bow;
That half your locks are turn'd to grey?
I'll ne'er believe a word they say.
"Tis true, but let it not be known,
My eyes are fomewhat dimmish grown:
For nature, always in the right,
To your decays adapts my fight;
And wrinkles undistinguish'd pafs,
For I 'm afham'd to use a glass ;
And till I fee them with these eyes,
Whoever fays 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 fee.
Oh, ne'er may Fortune fhew her spight
To make me deaf, and mend my fight !
ARTERET was welcom'd to the fhore
Firft with the brazen cannons roar;
To meet him next the foldier comes,
With brazen trumps and brazen drums;
Approaching near the town, he hears
The brazen bells falute his ears:
But, when Wood's brafs began to found,
Guns, trumpets, drums, and bells, were drown'd.
SIMILE,
ON OUR WANT OF SILVER:
And the only WAY to REMEDY it. 172.
S when of old fome forcerefs threw
O'er the moon's face a fable hue,
To drive unfeen her magic chair,
At midnight through the darken'd air;
Wife people, who believ'd with reason
That this eclipfe was out of feafon,
Affirm'd the moon was fick, and fell
To cure her by a counter-fpell.
Ten thousand cymbals now begin
To rend the fkies with brazen din;
The cymbals' rattling founds difpel
The cloud, and drive the hag to hell.
The moon, deliver'd from her pain,
Difplays her filver face again
(Note here, that in the chemic ftyle,
The moon is filver all this while).
So (if my fimile you minded,
Which I confefs is too long-winded)
When late a feminine magician *,
Join'd with a brazen politician,
Expos'd, to blind the nation's eyes,
A parchment † of prodigious fize;
A great lady was faid to have been bribed by Wood. + The patent for coining half-pence.
Conceal'd behind that ample screen,
There was no filver to be seen.
But to this parchment let the Drapier
Oppose his counter-charm of paper,
And ring Wood's copper in our ears
So loud till all the nation hears;
That found will make the parchment shrivel,
And drive the conjurers to the devil :
And, when the fky is grown ferene,
Our filver will appear again.
Y long obfervation I have understood,
That two little vermin are kin to Will Wood.
The first is an infect they call a wood-loufe,
That folds up itfelf in itfelf for a house,
As round as a ball, without head, without tail,
Inclos'd cap-a-pe in a strong coat of mail.
And thus William Wood to my fancy appears
In fillets of brafs roll'd up to his ears:
And over thefe fillets he wifely has thrown,
To keep out of danger, a doublet of stone *.
The loufe of the wood for a medicine is us'd,
Or fwallow'd alive, or skilfully bruis'd.
And, let but our mother Hibernia contrive
To fwallow Will Wood either bruis'd or alive,
* He was in gaol for debt.
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