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STELLA's Birth-Day.

March 13, 1726-7.

HIS 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 fick, and I grown old,
Nor think on our approaching Ills,
And talk of Spectacles and Pills.
To-morrow will be time enough
To hear fuch mortifying Stuff.
Yet, fince from Reafon may be brought
A better and more pleasing Thought,
Which can, in fpight of all Decays,
Support a few remaining Days:
From not the graveft of Divines,
Accept, for once, fome ferious 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 Profelytes for Vice;

(The

(The only Comfort they propose,
To have Companions in their Woes.)
Grant this the Cafe; yet fure 'tis hard,
That Virtue, ftil'd its own Reward,
And by all Sages understood

To be the chief of human Good,
Should, acting die, nor leave behind
Some lafting Pleasure in the Mind;
Which by Remembrance will affwage
Grief, Sickness, Poverty, and Age;
And strongly shoot a radiant Dart,
To fhine through Life's declining Part.

SAY, Stella, feel you no Content,
Reflecting on a Life well spent?
Your fkilful Hand employ'd to fave
Despairing Wretches from the Grave;
And then fupporting with your Store,
Those whom you dragg'd from Death before:
(So Providence on Mortals waits,
Preferving what it first creates)
Your generous Boldnefs to defend
An innocent and abfent Friend:
That Courage which can make you just,
To Merit humbled in the Duft:
The Deteftation you express;

For Vice in all its glitt❜ring Drefs:
That Patience under tott'ring Pain,
Where stubborn Stoicks would complain.

SHALL thefe, like empty Shadows, pass,
Or Forms reflected from a Glafs?

Or

Or mere Chimæra's 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 supply'd,
It must a thousand times have dy'd.
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 paft,
And ftill continu'd by the last:
Then, who with Reason can pretend,
That all Effects of Virtue end?

BELIEVE me, Stella, when you fhow
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 Janus, bears a double Face;
Looks back with Joy where fhe has gone,
And therefore goes with Courage on.
She at your fickly Couch will wait,
And guide you to a better State.

O THEN, whatever Heav'n intends
Take Pity on your pitying Friends;
Nor let your Ills affect your Mind,
To fancy they can be unkind.

Me,

Me, furely Me, you ought to fpare,
Who gladly would your Suff'rings share;
Or give my Scrap of Life to you,
And think it far beneath your Due:
You, to whofe Care so oft I owe,
That I'm alive to tell you fo.

To STELLA vifiting me in my Sickness.

October, 1727.

PALLAS, obferving Stella's Wit

Shine more than for her Sex was fit;

And that her Beauty, foon or late,
Might breed Confufion in the State
In high Concern for human Kind,
Fixt Honour in her Infant Mind.

BUT, (not in Wranglings to engage
With fuch a stupid vicious Age,)
If Honour I would here define,
It answers Faith in Things divine;
As nat'ral Life the Body warms,

And Scholars teach, the Soul informs;
So Honour animates the Whole,

And is the Spirit of the Soul.

THOSE

THOSE num'rous Virtues which the Tribe

Of tedious Moralists describe,

And by fuch various Titles call;
True Honour comprehends them all,
Let Melancholy rule fupreme,
Choler prefide, or Blood, or Phlegm;
It makes no Diff'rence in the Cafe,
Nor is Complexion Honour's Place.

BUT, left we fhould, for Honour take
The drunken Quarrels of a Rake;
Or, think it feated in a Scar;
Or on a proud triumphal Car;
Or in the Payment of a Debt
We lose with Sharpers at Piquet
Or, when a Whore, in her Vocation,
Keeps punctual to an Affignation;
Or, that on which his Lordship swears,
When vulgar Knaves would lose their Ears:
Let Stella's fair Example preach,

A Leffon fhe alone can teach.

IN Points of Honour to be try'd,.

All Paffions must be laid aside;
Ask no Advice, but think alone:
Suppose the Question not your own:
How fhall I act? is not the Cafe;
But how would Brutus in my Place?
In fuch a Caufe would Cato bleed?
And how would Socrates proceed?

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