The crier was order'd to dismiss
The court, so made his last "O yes!"
The goddess would no longer wait;
But, rising from her chair of state,
Left all below at six and seven,
Harness'd her doves, and flew to Heaven.
In all I wish, how happy should I be,
Thou grand Deluder, were it not for thee!
So weak thou art, that fools thy power despise ;
And yet so strong, thou triumph'st o'er the wise.
Thy traps are laid with such peculiar art,
They catch the cautious, let the rash depart.
Most nets are fill'd by want of thought and care:
But too much thinking brings us to thy snare;
Where, held by thee, in slavery we stay,
And throw the pleasing part of life away.
But, what does most my indignation move,
Discretion! thou wert ne'er a friend to Love:
Thy chief delight is to defeat those arts,
By which he kindles mutual flames in hearts;
While the blind loitering God is at his play,
Thou steal'st his golden pointed darts away:
Those darts which never fail; and in their stead
Convey'st malignant arrows tipt with lead :
* Found in Miss Vanhomrigh's desk, after her death, in the handwriting of Dr Swift.-H.
The heedless God, suspecting no deceits,
Shoots on, and thinks he has done wond'rous feats;
But the poor nymph, who feels her vitals burn,
And from her shepherd can find no return,
Laments, and rages at the power divine,
When, curst Discretion! all the fault was thine :
Cupid and Hymen thou hast set at odds,
And bred such feuds between those kindred gods,
That Venus cannot reconcile her sons;
When one appears, away the other runs.
The former scales, wherein he us'd to poise.
Love against love, and equal joys with joys,
Are now fill'd up with avarice and pride,
Where titles, power, and riches, still subside.
Then, gentle Venus, to thy father run,
And tell him, how thy children are undone ;
Prepare his bolts to give one fatal blow,
And strike Discretion to the shades below.
Cut the name of the man* who his mistress denied,
And let the first of it be only applied
To join with the prophet † who David did chide ; Then say what a horse is that runs very fast; ‡ And that which deserves to be first put the last;
Spell all then, and put them together, to find
The name and the virtues of him I design'd.
Like the patriarch in Egypt, he's vers'd in the state;
Like the prophet in Jewry, he's free with the great;
Like a racer he flies, to succour with speed,
When his friends want his aid, or desert is in need.
THE nymph who wrote this in an amorous fit,
I cannot but envy the pride of her wit,
Which thus she will venture profusely to throw
On so mean a design, and a subject so low.
For mean's her design, and her subject as mean,
The first but a rebus, the last but a dean.
A dean's but a parson: and what is a rebus ?
A thing never known to the Muses or Phoebus.
The corruption of verse; for, when all is done,
It is but a paraphrase made on a pun.
But a genius like her's no subject can stifle,
It shows and discovers itself through a trifle.
By reading this trifle, I quickly began
To find her a great wit, but the dean a small man.
Rich ladies will furnish their garrets with stuff,
Which others for mantuas would think fine enough:
So the wit that is lavishly thrown away here,
Might furnish a second-rate poet a-year.
Thus much for the verse, we proceed to the next,
Where the nymph has entirely forsaken her text':
Her fine panegyrics are quite out of season :
And what she describes to be merit, is treason:
The changes which faction has made in the state,
Have put the dean's politics quite out of date:
Now no one regards what he utters with freedom, And, should he write pamphlets, no great man would read 'em ;
And, should want or desert stand in need of his aid, This racer would prove but a dull founder'd jade.
STELLA this day is thirty-four,
(We sha'n't dispute a year or more)
However, Stella, be not troubled,
Although thy size and years are doubled
Since first I saw thee at sixteen,
The brightest virgin on the green:
So little is thy form declin'd;
Made up so largely in thy mind.
O, would it please the gods to split
Thy beauty, size, and years, and wit!
No age could furnish out a pair
Of nymphs so graceful, wise, and fair;
With half the lustre of your eyes,
With half your wit, your years, and size.
And then, before it grew too late,
How should I beg of gentle fate,
(That every nymph might have her swain)
To split my worship too in twain.
STELLA'S BIRTH-DAY. 1719-20.
ALL travellers at first incline
Where'er they see the fairest sign:
And if they find the chambers neat,
And like the liquor and the meat,
Will call again, and recommend,
The Angel Inn to every friend.
What though the painting grows decay'd,
The house will never lose its trade:
Nay, though the treacherous tapster, Thomas,
Hangs a new Angel two doors from us,
As fine as dauber's hands can make it,
In hopes that strangers may mistake it,
We think it both a shame and sin
To quit the true old Angel Inn.
Now this is Stella's case in fact,
An angel's face a little crack'd,
Could poets or could painters fix
How angels look at thirty-six:
This drew us in at first to find
In such a form an angel's mind;
And every virtue now supplies
The fainting rays of Stella's eyes.
See at her levee crowding swains,
Whom Stella freely entertains
With breeding, humour, wit, and sense,
And puts them but to small expence ;
Their mind so plentifully fills,
And makes such reasonable bills,
So little gets for what she gives,
We really wonder how she lives!
And had her stock been less, no doubt
She must have long ago run out.
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