Without an ounce of last year's flesh;
Whate'er she gains is young and fresh ;
Grows plump and round, and full of mettle,
As rising from Medea's kettle,
With youth and beauty to enchant
Europa's counterfeit gallant.
Why, Stella, should you knit
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 you 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 BIRTH-DAY. 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
To fill a place, for want of better:
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 confin'd 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 inspir'd 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 sithe 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 asham'd 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
Honour 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 spight,
To make me deaf, and mend my sight!
EPIGRAM ON WOOD'S BRASS MONEY.
CARTERET was welcom'd to the shore
First with the brazen cannon's roar;
To meet him next the soldier comes,
With brazen trumps and brazen drums;
Approaching near the town, he hears
The brazen bells salute his ears:
But when Wood's brass began to sound,
Guns, trumpets, drums, and bells, were drown'd.
A SIMILE, ON OUR WANT OF SILVER,
AND THE ONLY WAY TO REMEDY IT.
As when of old some sorceress threw
O'er the moon's face a sable hue,
To drive unseen her magic chair,
At midnight through the darken'd air;
Wise people, who believ'd with reason
That this eclipse was out of season,
Affirm'd the moon was sick, and fell
To cure her by a counter spell.
Ten thousand cymbals now begin
To rend the skies with brazen din;
The cymbals'rattling sounds dispel
The cloud, and drive the hag to hell
The moon, deliver'd from her pain,
Displays her silver face again.
Note here, that in the chemic style,
The moon is silver all this while.
So (if my simile you minded,
Which I confess is too longwinded)
When late a feminine magician,*
Join'd with a brazen politician,
Expos'd to blind the nation's eyes,
A parchment † of prodigious sizę ;
Conceal'd behind that ample screen,
There was no silver to be seen.
But to this parchment let the Drapier
Oppose his countercharm of paper,
And ring Wood's copper in our ears
So loud till all the nation hears;
That sound will make the parchment shrivel,
And drive the conjurers to the Devil:
And when the sky is grown serene,
Our silver will appear again.
WOOD AN INSECT. 1725
BY long observation I have understood,
That two little vermin are kin to Will Wood,
The first is an insect they call a wood-louse,
That folds up itself in itself for a house,
As round as a ball, without head, without tail,
Enclos'd cap à pié, in a strong coat of mail.
And thus William Wood to my fancy appears
In fillets of brass roll'd up to his ears:
And over these fillets he wisely has thrown,
To keep out of danger, a doublet of stone.
* A great lady was said to have been bribed by Wood. N. The patent for coining halfpence, N.
He was in gaol for debt. F.
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