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Some joy still lost, as each vain year runs o'er,
And all we gain, some sad reflection more;
Is that a birthday? 'tis alas! too clear
'Tis but the funeral of the former year.

Let joy or ease, let affluence or content,
And the gay conscience of a life well spent,
Calm every thought, inspirit every grace,
Glow in thy heart, and smile upon thy face
Let day improve on day, and year on year,
Without a pain, a trouble, or a fear;
Till death unfelt that tender frame destroy,
In some soft dream, or ecstasy of joy,

Peaceful sleep out the Sabbath of the tomb,
And wake to raptures in a life to come.

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TO MR THOMAS SOUTHERN,1 ON HIS
BIRTHDAY, 1742.

RESIGN'D to live, prepared to die,
With not one sin, but poetry,

This day Tom's fair account has run
(Without a blot) to eighty-one.
Kind Boyle, before his poet lays
A table,2 with a cloth of bays;
And Ireland, mother of sweet singers,

Presents her harp 3 still to his fingers.

'Southern author of 'Oronooko,' &c. He lived to the age of eighty-six. -2A table' he was invited to dine on his birthday with this nobleman, who had prepared for him the entertainment of which the bill of fare is here set down.Harp: the Irish harp was woven on table-cloths, &c.

VARIATION.

VER. 15. Originally thus in the MS. :-
And oh, since Death must that fair frame de-

stroy,

Die, by some sudden ecstasy of joy;

In some soft dream may thy mild soul remove,
And be thy latest gasp a sigh of love.

The feast, his towering genius marks
In yonder wild goose and the larks;
The mushrooms show his wit was sudden;
And for his judgment, lo, a pudden !
Roast beef, though old, proclaims him stout,
And grace, although a bard, devout.

May Tom, whom Heaven sent down to raise
The price of prologues 1 and of plays,
Be every birthday more a winner,
Digest his thirty-thousandth dinner;
Walk to his grave without reproach,
And scorn a rascal and a coach.

9

20

TO MR JOHN MOORE,

AUTHOR OF THE CELEBRATED WORM-POWDER.

1 How much, egregious Moore, are we
Deceived by shows and forms!
Whate'er we think, whate'er we see,
All humankind are worms.

2 Man is a very worm by birth,
Vile reptile, weak and vain!
A while he crawls upon the earth,
Then shrinks to earth again.

3 That woman is a worm, we find

E'er since our grandame's evil;

She first conversed with her own kind,

That ancient worm, the Devil.

''Prologues:' Dryden used to sell his prologues at four guineas each, till, when Southern applied for one, he demanded six, saying, 'Young man, the players have got my goods too cheap.'

4 The learn'd themselves we book-worms name, The blockhead is a slow-worm;

The nymph whose tail is all on flame,
Is aptly term'd a glow-worm:

5 The fops are painted butterflies,
That flutter for a day;

First from a worm they take their rise,
And in a worm decay.

6 The flatterer an earwig grows ;

Thus worms suit all conditions;

Misers are muck-worms, silk-worms beaux,
And death-watches, physicians.

7 That statesmen have the worm, is seen
By all their winding play ;
Their conscience is a worm within,

That gnaws them night and day.

8 Ah, Moore! thy skill were well employ'd,
And greater gain would rise,

If thou couldst make the courtier void
The worm that never dies!

9 O learned friend of Abchurch Lane, Who sett'st our entrails free!

Vain is thy art, thy powder vain,

Since worms shall eat even thee.

10 Our fate thou only canst adjourn
Some few short years-no more;

Even Button's Wits to worms shall turn,
Who maggots were before.

TO MR C., ST JAMES'S PLACE.

1 FEW words are best; I wish

you

well:

Bethel, I'm told, will soon be here;
Some morning walks along the Mall,

And evening friends, will end the year.

2 If in this interval, between

The falling leaf and coming frost,
You please to see, on Twit'nam green,

Your friend, your poet, and your host:

3 For three whole days you here may rest
From office business, news, and strife;
And (what most folks would think a jest)
Want nothing else except your wife.

EPITAPHS.

I. ON CHARLES EARL OF DORSET, IN THE CHURCH OF WITHYAM, IN SUSSEX.

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DORSET, the grace of courts, the Muses' pride,
Patron of arts, and judge of nature, died.
The scourge of pride, though sanctified or great,
Of fops in learning, and of knaves in state:
Yet soft his nature, though severe his lay,

His anger moral, and his wisdom gay.

''Mr C.: ' Mr Cleland, whose residence was in St James's Place, where he died in 1741. See preface to 'The Dunciad.'

Bless'd satirist! who touch'd the mean so true,
As show'd vice had his hate and pity too.
Blest courtier! who could king and country please,
Yet sacred keep his friendships, and his ease.
Blest peer! his great forefathers' every grace
Reflecting, and reflected in his race;
Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets shine,
And patriots still, or poets, deck the line.

II. ON SIR WILLIAM TRUMBULL.1

A PLEASING form; a firm, yet cautious mind;
Sincere, though prudent; constant, yet resign'd:
Honour unchanged, a principle profess'd,
Fix'd to one side, but moderate to the rest:
An honest courtier, yet a patriot too;
Just to his prince, and to his country true :
Fill'd with the sense of age, the fire of youth,
A scorn of wrangling, yet a zeal for truth;
A generous faith, from superstition free;
A love to peace, and hate of tyranny;

Such this man was; who now, from earth removed,
At length enjoys that liberty he loved.

III. ON THE HON. SIMON HARCOURT, ONLY SON OF THE LORD CHANCELLOR HARCOURT, AT THE CHURCH OF STANTON HARCOURT, IN OXFORDSHIRE, 1720.

To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art, draw near;
Here lies the friend most loved, the son most dear:
Who ne'er knew joy, but friendship might divide,
Or gave his father grief but when he died.

Trumbull:' one of the principal Secretaries of State to King William III., who, having resigned his place, died in his retirement at Easthamstead, in Berkshire, 1716.

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