But, lest you should my skill disgrace,
Come back before you're out of case;
For if to Michaelmas you stay,
The new-born flesh will melt away;
The 'squires in scorn will fly the house
For better game, and look for grouse;
But here, before the frost can mar it,
We'll make it firm with beef and claret.
[Footnote 1: The celebrated sorceress, daughter of AEetes, King of
Colchis, who assisted Jason in obtaining possession of the Golden
Fleece.--_W. E. B_.]
[Footnote 2: Carried off by Jupiter under the form of a bull. Ovid,
"Met." ii, 836.]
STELLA'S BIRTH-DAY. 1724-5
As when a beauteous nymph decays,
We say she's past her dancing days;
So poets lose their feet by time,
And can no longer dance in rhyme.
Your annual bard had rather chose
To celebrate your birth in prose:
Yet merry folks, who want by chance
A pair to make a country dance,
Call the old housekeeper, and get her
To fill a place for want of better:
While Sheridan is off the hooks,
And friend Delany at his books,
That Stella may avoid disgrace,
Once more the Dean supplies their place.
Beauty and wit, too sad a truth!
Have always been confined to youth;
The god of wit and beauty's queen,
He twenty-one and she fifteen,
No poet ever sweetly sung,
Unless he were, like Phoebus, young;
Nor ever nymph inspired to rhyme,
Unless, like Venus, in her prime.
Pages:
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66