Imatges de pàgina
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Your skilful Hand employ'd to fave

Defpairing 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 gen'rous Boldness to defend

An innocent and abfent Friend:

That Courage which can make you just;

To Merit humbled in the Duft:
The Deteftation you exprefs

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

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

Or mere Chimæra's in the Mind,

That fly and leave no Marks behind?

Does not the Body thrive and

By Food of Twenty Years

grow

ago?

And, had it not been still supply'd,

It must a Thousand Times have dy'd.

Then,

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 Racé,

Like Janus, bears a double Face;
Looks back with Joy where she 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;

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Not

Nor let your Ills affect your Mind,

To fancy they can be unkind.

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.

ALLAS, obferving Stella's Wit

PALL

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 ftupid vicious Age,)

If

If Honour I would here define,

It answers Faith in Things divine.

As natʼral Life the Body warms,

And, Scholars teach, the Soul informs;

So Honour animates the Whole,

And is the Spirit of the Soul.

THOSE num'rous Virtues which the Tribe

Of tedious Moralifts defcribe,

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 should 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

Or that on which his Lordship fwears,

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 afide :
Ask no Advice, but think alone:
Suppose the Question not your own:
How shall 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?

DRIVE all Objections from your Mind, Elfe you relapfe to human Kind:

Ambition, Avarice, and Luft,

And factious Rage, and Breach of Truft;
And Flatt'ry tipt with nauseous Fleer,
And guilty Shame, and fervile Fear,
Envy, and Cruelty, and Pride,
Will in your tainted Heart prefide.

HEROES and Heroines of old,
By Honour only were enroll'd

Among

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