Take pattern by your sister star:

Delude at once and bless our sight; When you are seen, be seen from far, And chiefly choose to shine by night,

But art no longer can prevail,

When the materials all are gone; The best mechanic hand must fail, Where nothing's left to work upon.

Matter, as wise logicians say,
Cannot without a form subsist :
And form, say I as well as they,
Must fail, if matter brings no grist.

And this is fair Diana's case;
For all astrologers maintain,

Each night a bit drops off her face,
When mortals say she's in her wane;

While Partridge wisely shows the cause
Efficient of the moon's decay,
That Cancer with his poisonous claws
Attacks her in the milky way;

But Gadbury, in art profound,

From her pale cheeks pretends to show,
That swain Endymion is not found,
Or else that Mercury's her foe.

But, let the cause be what it will,
In half a month she looks so thin,

* Partridge and Gadbury wrote each an ephemeris. H.

That Flamsteedt can, with all his skill,
See but her forehead and her chin.

Yet, as she wastes, she grows discreet,
Till midnight never shows her head:
So rotting Celia strolls the street,
When sober folks are all abed:

For sure, if this be Luna's fate,
Poor Celia, but of mortal race,
In vain expects a longer date

To the materials of her face.

When Mercury her tresses mows,
To think of black lead combs is vain;
No painting can restore a nose,
Nor will her teeth return again.

Ye powers, who over love preside!
Since mortal beauties drop so soon,

If ye would have us well supply'd,

Send us new nymphs with each new moon!

THE PROGRESS OF POETRY,

THE farmer's goose, who in the stubble
Has fed without restraint or trouble,
Grown fat with corn and sitting still,
Can scarce get o'er the barndoor sill;
And hardly waddles forth to cool
Her belly in the neighbouring pool!

† John Flamsteed, the celebrated astronomer royal, died in 1719, aged 73. N.

Nor loudly cackles at the door;

For cackling shows the goose is poor.

But, when she must be turn'd to graze, And round the barren common strays,

Hard exercise and harder fare,

Soon make my dame grow

lank and

Her body light, she tries her wings,

spare:

And scorns the ground, and upward springs;

While all the parish, as she flies,

Hear sounds harmonious from the skies.

Such is the poet fresh in pay,
The third night's profits of his play;

His morning draughts till noon can swill,
Among his brethren of the quill:
With good roast beef his belly full,
Grown lazy, foggy, fat, and dull,
Deep sunk in plenty and delight,
What poet e'er could take his flight?
Or, stuff'd with phlegm up to the throat,
What poet e'er could sing a note ?
Nor Pegasus could bear the load
Along the high celestial road;

The steed, oppress'd, would break his girth,
To raise the lumber from the earth.
But view him in another scene,
When all his drink is Hippocrene,
His money spent, his patrons fail,
His credit out for cheese and ale;
His two-years coat so smooth and bare,
Through every thread it lets in air;
With hungry meals his body pin'd,
His guts and belly full of wind;
And like a jockey for a race,

His flesh brought down to flying case:

And

Now his exalted spirit loathes
Encumbrances of food and clothes ;
up he rises, like a vapour,
Supported high on wings of paper;
He singing flies, and flying sings,

While from below all Grub-street rings.

THE SOUTH-SEA PROJECT. 1721.

"Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto,

Arma virum, tabulæque, et Troîa gaza per undas." VIRE.

YE wise philosophers, explain

What magic makes our money rise,
When dropt into the Southern main;
Or do these jugglers cheat our eyes?

Put in your money fairly told;
Presto! be gone 'Tis here again :
Ladies and gentlemen, behold,
Here's every piece as big as ten.

Thus in a basin drop a shilling,

Then fill the vessel to the brim;
You shall observe, as you are filling,
The ponderous metal seems to swim :

It rises both in bulk and height,

Behold it swelling like a sop;
The liquid medium cheats your sight;
Behold it mounted to the top!

In stock three hundred thousand pounds;
I have in view a lord's estate;

My manors all contiguous round;

A coach and six, and serv'd in plate!

Thus, the deluded bankrupt raves;
'Puts all upon a desperate bet;
Then plunges in the Southern waves,
Dipt over head and ears-in debt.

So, by a calenture misled,

The mariner with rapture sees,
On the smooth ocean's azure bed,
Enamell'd fields and verdant trees:

With eager haste he longs to rovė
In that fantastic scene, and thinks
It must be some enchanted grove ;

And in he leaps, and down he sinks.

Five hundred chariots just bespoke,
Are sunk in these devouring waves,
The horses drown'd, the harness broke,
And here the owners find their graves.

Like Pharaoh, by directors led;

They with their spoils went safe before; His chariots, tumbling out the dead, Lay shatter'd on the Red Sea shore.

Rais'd up on Hope's aspiring plumes,
The young adventurer o'er the deep
An eagle's flight and state assumes,

And scorns the middle way to keep.

On paper wings he takes his flight,
With wax the father bound them fast;