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 you would have us well supplied,
Send us new nymphs with each new moon.
RIGHT trusty! and so forth;-we let you to know
We are very ill used by your mortals below:
For, first, I have often by chemists been told,
Though I know nothing on't, it is I that make gold,
Which when you have got, you so carefully hide it,
That since I was born I hardly have spied it.
Then it must be allow'd, that whenever I shine
I forward the grass and I ripen the vine ;
To me the good fellows apply for relief, [beef;
Without whom they could get neither claret nor
Yet their wine and their victuals these curmudgeon
lubbards
Lock up from my sight in cellars and cupboards.
That I have an ill eye they wickedly think,
And taint all their meat, and sour all their drink.
But, thirdly, and lastly, it must be allow'd
I alone can inspire the poetical crowd;
This is gratefully own'd by each boy in the College,
Whom if I inspire, it is not to my knowledge;
This every pretender to rhyme will admit,
Without troubling his head about judgment or wit.
These gentlemen use me with kindness and freedom,
And as for their works, when I please I may read
They lie open on purpose on counters and stalls,
And the titles I view when I shine on the walls.
But a comrade of your's, that traitor Delany,
Whom I, for your sake, love better than any,
And of my mere motion and special good grace,
Intended in time to succeed in your place,
On Tuesday the tenth seditiously came
With a certain false traitress, one Stella by name,
To the deanery house, and on the north glass,
Where, for fear of the cold, I never can pass,
Then and there, vi et armis, with a certain utensil,
Of value five shillings, in English a pencil,
Did maliciously, falsely, and traitorously write,
Whilst Stella aforesaid stood by with a light.
My sister has lately deposed upon oath,
That she stopp'd in her course to look at them both:
That Stella was helping, abetting, and aiding,
And still, as he writ, stood smiling and reading:
That her eyes were as bright as myself at noonday,
But her graceful black locks were all mingled with
grey,
And by the description I certainly know
'Tis the nymph that I courted some ten years ago;
Whom when I with the best of my talents endued, On her promise of yielding, she acted the prude: That some verses were writ with felonious intent, Direct to the north, where I never went;
That the letters appear'd reverse through the pane, But in Stella's bright eyes they were placed right again,
Wherein she distinctly could read every line,
And presently guess'd that the fancy was mine.
Now you see why his verses so seldom are shown;
The reason is plain, they 're none of his own:
And observe while you live, that no man is shy
To discover the goods he came honestly by.
If I light on a thought, he will certainly steal it,
And when he has got it find ways to conceal it.
Of all the fine things he keeps in the dark,
There's scarce one in ten but what has my
mark;
And let them be seen by the world if he dare,
I'll make it appear they are all stolen ware.
But as for the poem he writ on your sash,
I think I have now got him under my lash;
My sister transcribed it last night to his sorrow,
And the public shall see't if I live till to-morrow;
Through the zodiac around it shall quickly be
spread,
In all parts of the globe where your language is read.
He knows very well I ne'er gave a refusal,
When he ask'd for my aid in the forms that are usual;
But the secret is this; I did lately intend
To write a few verses on you as my friend;
I studied a fortnight before I could find,
As I rode in my chariot, a thought to my mind,
And resolved the next winter, (for that is my time,
When the days are at shortest) to get it in rhyme;
Till then it was lock'd in my box at Parnassus, When that subtle companion, in hopes to surpass us, Conveys out my paper of hints by a trick,
(For I think in my conscience he deals with Old Nick)
And from my own stock provided with topics,
He gets to a window beyond both the tropics;
There, out of my sight, just against the north zone,
Writes down my conceits, and calls them his own;
And you, like a cully, the bubble can swallow;
Now, who but Delany that writes like Apollo!
High treason by statute! but here you object,
'He only stole hints, but the verse is correct;
Though the thought be Apollo's, 'tis finely ex-
press'd;'
So a thief steals my horse, and has him well dress'd. Now, whereas the said criminal seems past repentance,
We Phoebus think fit to proceed to the sentence.
Since Delany has dared, like Prometheus his sire,
To climb to our region, and thence to steal fire,
We order a vulture, in shape of the Spleen,
To prey on his liver, but not to be seen:
And we order our subjects of every degree
To believe all his verses were written by me;
And, under the pain of our highest displeasure,
To call nothing his, but the rhyme and the mea-
And, lastly, for Stella, just out of her prime,
I'm too much revenged already by Time.
In return to her scorn I sent her diseases,
But will now be her friend whenever she pleases;
And the gifts I bestow'd her will find her a lover,
Though she lives to be grey as a badger all over.
THE bold encroachers on the deep
Gain by degrees huge tracts of land,
Till Neptune with one general sweep
Turns all again to barren strand.
The multitude's capricious pranks
Are said to represent the seas,
Which breaking Bankers and the banks,
Resume their own whene'er they please.
Money, the life-blood of the nation,
Corrupts and stagnates in the veins,
Unless a proper circulation
Its motion and its heat maintains.
Because 'tis lordly not to pay,
Quakers and aldermen in state,
Like
have levees every day
peers,
Of duns attending at their gate.
We want our money on the nail;
The Banker's ruin'd if he pays: They seem to act an ancient tale:
The birds are met to strip the jays.
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