Stella to you, her tutor, owes
That he has ne'er resembled those;
Nor was a burden to mankind
With half her courfe of years behind.
You taught how I might youth prolong,
By knowing what was right and wrong
How from my heart to bring supplies
Of luftre to my fading eyes;
How foon a beauteous mind repairs
The lofs of chang'd or falling hairs;
How wit and virtue from within
Send out a fmoothness o'er the skin:
Your lectures could my fancy fix,
And I can please at thirty-fix.
The fight of Cloe at fifteen
Coquetting, gives not me the fpleen;
The idol now of every fool
Till time shall make their paffions cool;
Then tumbling down time's steepy hill,
While Stella holds her ftation ftill.
Oh! turn your precepts into laws,
Redeem the women's ruin'd caufe,
Retrieve loft empire to our fex,
That men may bow their rebel necks.
Long be the day that gave you birth
Sacred to friendship, wit, and mirth ;
Late dying may you cast a shred
Of
your rich mantle o'er my head; To bear with dignity my forrow, One day alone, then die to-morrow.
WHILE, Stella, to your lasting praise
The Muse her annual tribute pays,
While I affign myself a task
Which you expect, but fcorn to afk 6B
If I perform this task with pain,
Let me of partial fate complain;
You every year the debt enlarge,
grow lefs equal to the charge :
In you each virtue brighter fhines,
But my poetic vein declines;
My harp will foon in vain be ftrung,
And all your virtues left unfung:
For none among the upftart race
Of Poets dare affume my place;
Your worth will be to them unknown,
They must have Stella's of their own
And thus, my stock of wit decay'd,.
I dying leave the debt unpaid,
Unless Delany, as my heir,,
Will answer for the whole arrear.
ON THE GREAT BURIED BOTTLE, BY DR. DELANY.
AMPHORA, quæ motum linquis, lætumque revifos
Arentem dominum, fit tibi terra levis.
Tu quoque depofitum ferves, neve opprime, marmor; Amphora non meruit tam pretiofa mori.
OC tumulata jacet proles Lenæa fepulchro,
Immortale genus, nec peritura jacet ;
Quin oritura iterum, matris concreditur alvo;
Bis natum referunt te quoque, Bacche Pater.
STELLA'S BIRTH-DAY; great Bottle of Wine, long buried, being that Day dug up. 1722-3..
RESOLV'D my annual verse to pay,
By duty bound, on Stella's day,
Furnish'd with paper, pens, and ink,
I gravely fat me down to think:
bit my nails, and scratch'd my head,
But found my wit and fancy fled:
Or, if with more than ufual pain,
A thought came flowly from my brain,
It coft me lord knows how much time
To shape it into sense and rhyme:
And, what was yet a greater curse,
Long thinking made my fancy worse.
Forfaken by th' infpiring Nine,
I waited at Apollo's fhrine :
I told him what the world would say,
If Stella were unfung to-day;
How I fhould hide my head for fhame,
When both the Jacks and Robin came;
How Ford would frown, how Jim would leer,
How Sheridan the rogue would fneer,
And fwear it does not always follow,
That femel'n anno ridet Apollo.
I have affur'd them twenty times,
That Phoebus help'd me in my rhymes ;
Phœbus inspir'd me from above,
And he and I were hand and glove.
But, finding me fo dull and dry fince,
They'll call it all poetic licence;
And, when I brag of aid divine,
Think Eufden's right as good as minė.
Nor do I ask for Stella's fake;
'Tis my own credit lies at ftake:
And Stella will be fung, while I
Can only be a stander-by.
Apollo, having thought a little,
Return'd this anfwer to a tittle.
Though you should live like old Methufalem,
I furnish hints, and you fhall use all 'em,
You yearly fing as the grows old,
You'd leave her virtue's half untold.
But, to say truth, fuch dulness reigns,
Through the whole fet of Irish deans,
I'm daily ftunn'd with fuch a medley,
Dean W-, Dean D, and Dean Smedley,
That, let what Dean foever come,
My orders are, I'm not at home;
And, if your voice had not been loud,
You must have pafs'd among the croud.
But now, your danger to prevent,
You must apply to Mrs. Brent;
For fhe, as priestess, knows the rites
Wherein the god of earth delights.
First, nine ways looking, let her ftand
With an old poker in her hand;
Let her defcribe a circle round
In Saunders' cellar on the ground:
A fpade let prudent Archy hold,
And with difcretion dig the mould
Let Stella look with watchful eye,
Rebecca, Ford, and Grattans by.
Behold the bottle, where it lies
With neck elated towards the skies !
The god of winds and god of fire
Did to its wondrous birth confpire;
And Bacchus for the poet's use
Pour'd in a strong infpiring juice.
See! as you raise it from its tomb,
It drags behind a fpacious womb,
And in the spacious womb contains
A fovereign medicine for the brains.
You'll find it foon, if fate confents
If not, a thousand Mrs. Brents,
Ten thousand Archys arm'd with fpades,
May dig in vain to Pluto's fhades.
From thence a plenteous draught infufe, And boldly then invoke the Mufe
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