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 spite of all decays,
Support a few remaining days;
From not the gravest 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 faft,
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 case; 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, ficknefs, poverty, and age,
And strongly shoot a radiant d'art
To fhine through life's declining part,
Say, Stella; feel you no content,
Reflecting on a life well-fpent?
Your skilful hand employ'd to fave
Defpairing wretches from the grave;
And then fupporting with your ftore
Those whom you dragg'd from death before?
So Providence on mortals waits,
Preferving what it first creates.
Your generous boldness to defend
An innocent and abfent friend;
That
which can make
courage
To merit krumbled in the duft;
The deteftation you exprefs
For vice in all its glittering dress ;
That patience under tottering pain,
Where stubborn Stoicks would complain
Must 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 thoufand 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 reason can pretend
That all effects of virtue end?
Believe me, Stella, when you
That true contempt for things below,
Nor prize your life for other ends
Than merely to oblige your friends;
Your former actions claim their
And join to fortify your heart.
For Virtue in her daily race,
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 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 whose care fo oft' I owe
That I'm alive to tell you fo.
HORACE, BOOK I. ODE XIV. Paraphrased, and infcribed 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 ftale,
Betwixt a ftate, and veffel under fail;
Let me fuppofe thee for a ship a-while,
And thus address thee in the failor's style :
UNHAPPY hip, thou art return'd in vain :
New waves fhall drive thee to the deep again.
Look to thyself, and be no more the sport
Of giddy winds, but make fome friendly port.
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