Volume Ii Part 6 (1/2)
[Footnote 3: Mercury.--Virg., ”Aeneid,” iv.]
ON THE COLLAR OF TIGER,
MRS. DINGLEY'S LAP-DOG
Pray steal me not; I'm Mrs. Dingley's, Whose heart in this four-footed thing lies.
STELLA'S BIRTH-DAY
MARCH 13, 1726-7
This day, whate'er the Fates decree, Shall still be kept with joy by me: This day then let us not be told, That you are sick, and I grown old; Nor think on our approaching ills, And talk of spectacles and pills; To-morrow will be time enough To hear such mortifying stuff.
Yet, since from reason may be brought A better and more pleasing thought, Which can, in spite of all decays, Support a few remaining days; From not the gravest of divines Accept for once some serious lines.
Although we now can form no more Long schemes of life, as heretofore; Yet you, while time is running fast, Can look with joy on what is past.
Were future happiness and pain A mere contrivance of the brain; As atheists argue, to entice And fit their proselytes for vice; (The only comfort they propose, To have companions in their woes;) Grant this the case; yet sure 'tis hard That virtue, styled its own reward, And by all sages understood To be the chief of human good, Should acting die; nor leave behind Some lasting pleasure in the mind, Which, by remembrance, will a.s.suage Grief, sickness, poverty, and age; And strongly shoot a radiant dart To s.h.i.+ne through life's declining part.
Say, Stella, feel you no content, Reflecting on a life well spent?
Your skilful hand employ'd to save Despairing wretches from the grave; And then supporting with your store Those whom you dragg'd from death before?
So Providence on mortals waits, Preserving what it first creates.
Your generous boldness to defend An innocent and absent friend; That courage which can make you just To merit humbled in the dust; The detestation you express For vice in all its glittering dress; That patience under torturing pain, Where stubborn stoics would complain: Must these like empty shadows pa.s.s, Or forms reflected from a gla.s.s?
Or mere chimeras in the mind, That fly, and leave no marks behind?
Does not the body thrive and grow By food of twenty years ago?
And, had it not been still supplied, It must a thousand times have died.
Then who with reason can maintain That no effects of food remain?
And is not virtue in mankind The nutriment that feeds the mind; Upheld by each good action past, And still continued by the last?
Then, who with reason can pretend That all effects of virtue end?
Believe me, Stella, when you show That true contempt for things below, Nor prize your life for other ends, Than merely to oblige your friends; Your former actions claim their part, And join to fortify your heart.
For Virtue, in her daily race, Like Ja.n.u.s, bears a double face; Looks back with joy where she has gone And therefore goes with courage on: She at your sickly couch will wait, And guide you to a better state.
O then, whatever Heaven intends, Take pity on your pitying friends!
Nor let your ills affect your mind, To fancy they can be unkind.
Me, surely me, you ought to spare, Who gladly would your suffering share; Or give my sc.r.a.p of life to you, And think it far beneath your due; You, to whose care so oft I owe That I'm alive to tell you so.
DEATH AND DAPHNE
TO AN AGREEABLE YOUNG LADY, BUT EXTREMELY LEAN. 1730
Lord Orrery gives us the following curious anecdote respecting this poem:
”I have just now cast my eye over a poem called 'Death and Daphne,' which makes me recollect an odd incident, relating to that nymph. Swift, soon after our acquaintance, introduced me to her as to one of his female favourites. I had scarce been half an hour in her company, before she asked me if I had seen the Dean's poem upon 'Death and Daphne.' As I told her I had not, she immediately unlocked a cabinet, and, bringing out the ma.n.u.script, read it to me with a seeming satisfaction, of which, at that time, I doubted the sincerity. While she was reading, the Dean was perpetually correcting her for bad p.r.o.nunciation, and for placing a wrong emphasis upon particular words. As soon as she had gone through the composition, she a.s.sured me, smilingly, that the portrait of Daphne was drawn for herself. I begged to be excused from believing it; and protested that I could not see one feature that had the least resemblance; but the Dean immediately burst into a fit of laughter. 'You fancy,' says he, 'that you are very polite, but you are much mistaken.
That lady had rather be a Daphne drawn by me, than a Sacharissa by any other pencil.' She confirmed what he had said with great earnestness, so that I had no other method of retrieving my error, than by whispering in her ear, as I was conducting her down stairs to dinner, that indeed I found 'Her hand as dry and cold as lead!'”
--_Remarks on the Life of Swift_, Lond., 1752, p. 126.
Death went upon a solemn day At Pluto's hall his court to pay; The phantom having humbly kiss'd His grisly monarch's sooty fist, Presented him the weekly bills Of doctors, fevers, plagues, and pills.
Pluto, observing since the peace The burial article decrease, And vex'd to see affairs miscarry, Declared in council Death must marry; Vow'd he no longer could support Old bachelors about his court; The interest of his realm had need That Death should get a numerous breed; Young deathlings, who, by practice made Proficient in their father's trade, With colonies might stock around His large dominions under ground.
A consult of coquettes below Was call'd, to rig him out a beau; From her own head Megaera[1] takes A periwig of twisted snakes: Which in the nicest fas.h.i.+on curl'd, (Like toupees[2] of this upper world) With flower of sulphur powder'd well, That graceful on his shoulders fell; An adder of the sable kind In line direct hung down behind: The owl, the raven, and the bat, Clubb'd for a feather to his hat: His coat, a usurer's velvet pall, Bequeath'd to Pluto, corpse and all.