STELLA'S BIRTH-DAY,
March 13, 1726.
THIS day, whate'er the Fates decree,
Shall ftill 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 pleafing thought,
Which can, in fpite 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.
VOL. II.
Were future happiness and pain
A mere contrivance of the brain;
As atheists argue, to entice
And fit their profelytes for vice
(The only comfort they propofe,
To have companions in their woes):
Grant this the cafe; yet fure 'tis hard
That virtue, ftyl'd its own reward,
And by all fages 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, fick nefs, poverty, and age,
And ftrongly fhoot 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
Defpairing wretches froin the grave;
And then fupporting with your ftore
Those whom you dragg'd from death before ?
So Providence on mortals waits,
Preferving what it firft creates.
Your generous boldness to defend
An innocent and abfent friend;
That courage which can make
To merit humbled in the duft;
The deteftation you exprefs
For vice in all its glittering dress;
That patience under tottering pain,
Where stubborn Stoicks would complain;
Muft these like empty shadows pass,
Or forms reflected from a glass ?
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 supply'd,
It must a thousand times have died.
Then who with reafon 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 still continued by the last?
Then, who with reafon 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 Janus, bears a double face;
Looks back with joy where the 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 Heaven intends,
Take pity on your pitying friends!
Nor let your ills affect your mind,
To fancy they can be unkind.
Me, furely me, you ought to fpare,
Who gladly would your fuffering fhare♫* ̈
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.
HORACE, BOOK I. ODE XIV. Paraphrased, and inscribed to IRELAND. 1726.
THE INSCRIPTION.
Poor floating ifle, toft on ill-fortune's waves,
Ordain'd by fate to be the land of flaves;
Shall moving Delos now deep-rooted stand:
Thou, fix'd of old, be now the moving land?.
Although the metaphor be worn and stale,
Betwixt a ftate, and veffel under fail;
Let me fuppofe thee for a ship a-while,
And thus addrefs thee in the failor's style:
NHAPPY fhip, thou art return'd in vain :
New waves shall drive thee to the deep again.
Look to thyself, and be no more the sport
Of giddy winds, but make some friendly port.
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