For when his paffion hath been bubbling long,
The fcum at laft boils up into a fong;
And fure no mortal creature at one time,
Was e'er fo far o'ergone with love and rhyme.
To his dear felf of poetry he talks,
His hands and feet are scanning as he walks
His writhing looks his pangs of wit accuse,
The airy symptoms of a breeding Muse,
And all to gain the great Lovifa's grace,
But never pen did pimp for fuch a face;
There's not a nymph in city, town, or court,
But Strephon's billet-doux has been their sport.
Still he loves on, yet ftill he 's fure to mifs,
As they who wash an Æthiop's face, or his.
What fate unhappy Strephon does attend?
Never to get a mistress, nor a friend.
Strephon alike both wits and fools deteft,
'Cause he's like Æsop's batt, half bird, half beast;
For fools to poetry have no pretence,
And common wit fuppofes common sense,
Not quite fo low as fool, nor quite a-top,
He hangs between them both, and is a fop.
His morals like his wit are motley too,
He keeps from arrant knave with much ado.
But vanity and lying so prevail,
That one grain more of each would turn the scale:
He would be more a villain had he time,
But he's fo wholly taken up with rhyme,
That he mistakes his talent; all his care
Is to be thought a poet fine and fair.
Small-beer and gruel are his meat and drink,
The diet he prescribes himself to think;
Rhyme next his heart he takes at the morn peep,
Some love-epiftles at the hour of fleep;
So betwixt elegy and ode we fee
Strephon is in a course of poetry:
This is the man ordain'd to do thee good,
The pelican to feed thee with his blood;
Thy wit, thy poet, nay thy friend, for he
Is fit to be a friend to none but thee.
Make fure of him and of his Mufe betimes,
For all his ftudy is hung round with rhymes.
Laugh at him, juftle him, yet still he writes,
In rhyme he challenges, in rhyme he fights;
Charg'd with the laft, and bafeft infamy,
His business is to think what rhymes to lye;
Which found, in fury he retorts again,
Strephon's a very dragon at his pen;
His brother murder'd, and his mother whor'd,
His mistress loft, and yet his pen 's his fword.
To the Memory of Mr. OLDHAM.
FAREWELL, too little and too lately known,
Whom I began to think, and call my own;
For fure our fouls were near allied, and thine
Caft in the fame poetic mould with mine.
One common note on either lyre did strike,
And knaves and fools we both adhorr'd alike.
To the fame goal did both our studies drive;
The laft fet out, the fooneft did arrive.
Thus Nifus fell upon the flippery place,
Whilft his young friend perform'd, and won the race.
O early ripe to thy abundant ftore
What could advancing age have added more?
It might (what nature never gives the young)
Have taught the smoothness of thy native tongue.
But fatire needs not thofe, and wit will fhine
Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.
A noble error, and but seldom made,
When poets are by too much force betray'd.
VOL. II.
Thy generous fruits, though gather'd ere their prime, Still fhew'd a quickness; and maturing time
But mellows what we write, to the dull sweets of rhyme.
Once more, hail, and farewel; farewel, thou young, But ah too fhort, Marcellus of our tongue !
Thy brows with ivy, and with laurels bound;
But fate and gloomy night encompass thee around.
To the pious Memory of the accomplished young Lady Mrs. ANNE KILLIGREW, excellent in the two Sifter-Arts of POESY and PAINTING.
THOU youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,
Made in the laft promotion of the bleft;
Whofe palms, new-pluck'd from paradise,
In fpreading branches more fublimely rife,
Rich with immortal green above the rest:
Whether, adopted to fome neighbouring ftar,
Thou roll'ft above us, in thy wandering race,
Or, in proceffion fix'd and regular,
Mov'd with the heaven majestic pace;
Or, call'd to more fuperior blifs,
Thou treadft, with feraphims, the vast abyss
Whatever happy region is thy place,
Cease thy celestial fong a little space;
Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,
Since heaven's eternal year is thine.
Hear then a mortal Mufe thy praise rehearse,
In no ignoble verse;
But such as thy own voice did practise here,
When thy firft fruits of Poefy were given ;
To make thyfelf a welcome inmate there :
While yet a young probationer,
And candidate of heaven.
If by traduction came thy mind,
Our wonder is the lefs to find
A foul fo charming from a stock fo good;
Thy father was transfus'd into thy blood:
So wert thou born into a tuneful strain,
An early, rich, and inexhausted vein.
But if thy pre-exifting foul
Was form'd, at firft, with myriads more,
It did through all the mighty poets roll,
Who Greek or Latin laurels wore,
And was that Sappho laft, which once it was before. If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind! Thou haft no drofs to purge from thy rich ore: Nor can thy foul a fairer manfion find,
Than was the beauteous frame fhe left behind :
Return to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial kind. III.
May we prefume to fay, that, at thy birth,
New joy was fprung in heaven, as well as here on earth.
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