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 confin'd.
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 amaz'd from whence
Proceeds that fund of wit and sense;
Which, though her modesty should 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
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.
ON THE DEATH OF DEMAR, THE USURER;
WHO DIED THE SIXTH OF JULY, 1720.
KNOW all men by these presents, Death the amér,
By mortgage has secur'd the corpse of Demar:
Nor can four hundred thousand sterling pound
Redeem him from his prison under ground.
His heirs might well, of all his wealth possess'd,
Bestow to bury him one iron chest.
Plutus the god of wealth will joy to know
His faithful steward in the shades below.
He walk'd the streets, and wore a threadbare cloak;
He din'd and supp'd at charge of other folk:
And by his looks, had he held out his palms,
He might be thought an object fit for alms.
So, to the poor if he refus'd his pelf,
He us'd them full as kindly as himself.
Where'er he went, he never saw his betters; Lords, knights, and squires, were all his humble debtors;
And under hand and seal the Irish nation
Were forc'd to own to him their obligation.
He that could once have half a kingdom bought,
In half a minute is not worth a groat.
His coffers from the coffin could not save,
Nor all his interest keep him from the grave.
A golden monument would not be right,
Because we wish the earth upon him light.
Oh London tavern!* thou hast lost a friend,
Though in thy walls he ne'er did farthing spend:
* A tavern in Dublin, where Demar kept his office. F.
He touch'd the pence, when others touch'd the pot;
The hand that sign'd the mortgage paid the shot.
Old as he was, no vulgar known disease
On him could ever boast a power to seize;
** But, as he weigh'd his gold, grim Death in spight Cast in his dart, which made three moidores light; And, as he saw his darling money fail,
Blew his last breath, to sink the lighter scale."
He who so long was current, 'twould be strange
If he should now be cry'd down since his change.
The sexton shall green sods on thee bestow;
Alas, the sexton is thy banker now!
A dismal banker must that banker be,
Who gives no bills but of mortality!
EPITAPH ON THE SAME.
BENEATH this verdant hillock lies
Demar,† the wealthy and the wise,
His heirs, that he might safely rest,
Have put his carcass in a chest ;
The very chest, in which, they say,
His other self, his money, lay.
And, if his heirs continue kind
To that dear self he left behind,
I dare believe, that four in five
Will think his better half alive.
* These four lines were written by Stella. F.
John D'Amory, Esq. dying in 1720 without issue, his estates in Ireland went to John, the eldest son of his brother George; and his Dorsetshire estates to Joseph, a younger son, the immediate ancestor of the present Earl of Dorchester. N.
TO MRS. HOUGHTON OF BOURMONT.
ON PRAISING HER HUSBAND TO DR. SWIFT.
You always are making a God of your Spouse;
But this neither Reason nor Conscience allows :
Perhaps you will say, 'tis in gratitude due,
And you adore him, because he adores you.
Your argument's weak, and so you will find;
For you, by this rule, must adore all mankind.
VERSES WRITTEN ON A WINDOW,
AT THE DEANERY HOUSE, ST. PATRICK'S.
ARE the guests of this house still doom'd to be cheated? Sure the Fates have decreed they by halves should be treated.
In the days of good John,* if you came here to dine, You had choice of good meat, but no choice of good
In Jonathan's reign, if you come here to eat,
You have choice of good wine, but no choice of good
O Jove! then how fully might all sides be blest,
Would'st thou but agree to this humble request!
Put both deans in one; or, if that's too much trouble,
Instead of the deans, make the deanery double.
* Dr. Sterne, the predecessor of Swift in the deanery of St. Patrick's, and afterward Bishop of Clogher, was distinguished for his hospitality. F.
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