Volume Ii Part 5 (1/2)

Should Solomon wise In majesty rise, And show them his wit and his learning; They never would hear, But turn the deaf ear, As a matter they had no concern in.

You tell a good jest, And please all the rest; Comes Dingley, and asks you, what was it?

And, curious to know, Away she will go To seek an old rag in the closet.

[Footnote 1: Dr. Swift's housekeeper.]

TO STELLA

WRITTEN ON THE DAY OF HER BIRTH, MARCH 13, 1723-4, BUT NOT ON THE SUBJECT, WHEN I WAS SICK IN BED

Tormented with incessant pains, Can I devise poetic strains?

Time was, when I could yearly pay My verse to Stella's native day: But now unable grown to write, I grieve she ever saw the light.

Ungrateful! since to her I owe That I these pains can undergo.

She tends me like an humble slave; And, when indecently I rave, When out my brutish pa.s.sions break, With gall in every word I speak, She with soft speech my anguish cheers, Or melts my pa.s.sions down with tears; Although 'tis easy to descry She wants a.s.sistance more than I; Yet seems to feel my pains alone, And is a stoic in her own.

When, among scholars, can we find So soft and yet so firm a mind?

All accidents of life conspire To raise up Stella's virtue higher; Or else to introduce the rest Which had been latent in her breast.

Her firmness who could e'er have known, Had she not evils of her own?

Her kindness who could ever guess, Had not her friends been in distress?

Whatever base returns you find From me, dear Stella, still be kind.

In your own heart you'll reap the fruit, Though I continue still a brute.

But, when I once am out of pain, I promise to be good again; Meantime, your other juster friends Shall for my follies make amends; So may we long continue thus, Admiring you, you pitying us.

VERSES BY STELLA

If it be true, celestial powers, That you have form'd me fair, And yet, in all my vainest hours, My mind has been my care: Then, in return, I beg this grace, As you were ever kind, What envious Time takes from my face Bestow upon my mind!

A RECEIPT TO RESTORE STELLA'S YOUTH. 1724-5

The Scottish hinds, too poor to house In frosty nights their starving cows, While not a blade of gra.s.s or hay Appears from Michaelmas to May, Must let their cattle range in vain For food along the barren plain: Meagre and lank with fasting grown, And nothing left but skin and bone; Exposed to want, and wind, and weather, They just keep life and soul together, Till summer showers and evening's dew Again the verdant glebe renew; And, as the vegetables rise, The famish'd cow her want supplies; 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 [1] kettle.

With youth and beauty to enchant Europa's[2] counterfeit gallant.

Why, Stella, should you knit your brow, 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 appet.i.te repair: The nutriment will from within, Round all your body, plump your 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 human kind, 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 pa.s.s, Just fifteen, coming summer's gra.s.s, 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 'squires 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.

[Footnote 1: The celebrated sorceress, daughter of aeetes, King of Colchis, who a.s.sisted Jason in obtaining possession of the Golden Fleece.--_W. E. B_.]

[Footnote 2: Carried off by Jupiter under the form of a bull. Ovid, ”Met.” ii, 836.]

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.