Pursue your trade of scandal-picking,
Your hints that Stella is no chicken;
Your innuendos, when you tell us
That Stella loves to talk with fellows;
And let me warn you to believe
A truth, for which your soul should grieve,
That should you live to see the day
When Stella's locks must all be gray,
When age must print a furrow'd trace
On every feature of her face,
Though you, and all your senseless tribe,
Could Art, or Time, or Nature bribe,
To make you look like Beauty's queen,
And hold for ever at fifteen,
No bloom of youth can ever blind
he cracks and wrinkles of your mind; All men of sense will pass your door, And crowd to Stella's at fourscore.
A House of Charles Ford, Esq. Eight Miles from
Dublin. Written in 1723.
Cuicunque uocere volebat
Vestimenta dabat pretiosa.
DON Carlos, in a merry spite,
Did Stella to his house invite;
He entertain'd her half a year
With generous wines and costly cheer.
Don Carlos made her chief director,
That she might o'er the servants hector:
In half a week the dame grew nice,
Got all things at the highest price:
Now at the table-head she sits,
Presented with the nicest bits;
She look'd on partridges with scorn,
Except they tasted of the corn;
A haunch of ven'son made her sweat,
Unless it had the right fumette.
Don Carlos earnestly would beg,
'Dear Madam! try this pigeon's leg;'
Was happy when he could prevail
To make her only touch a quail.
Through candle-light she view'd the wine,
To see that every glass was fine.
At last grown prouder than the devil,
With feeding high and treatment civil,
Don Carlos now began to find
His malice work as he design'd.
The winter-sky began to frown,
Poor Stella must pack off to town;
From purling streams and fountains bubbling, To Liffey's stinking tide at Dublin;
From wholesome exercise and air,
To sossing in an easy chair;
From stomach sharp and hearty feeding,
To piddle, like a lady breeding;
From ruling there the household singly,
To be directed here by Dingley*;
From every day a lordly banquet,
To half a joint, and God be thanked;
From every meal, Pontack in plenty,
To half a pint one day in twenty;
From Ford attending at her call,
To visits of
From Ford, who thinks of nothing mean,
To the poor doings of the Dean;
From growing richer with good cheer,
To running out by starving here.
But now arrives the dismal day,
She must return to Ormond-quay.
The coachman stopt, she look'd, and swore
The rascal had mistook the door.
At coming in you saw her stoop;
The entry brush'd against her hoop.
Each moment rising in her airs,
She curs'd the narrow winding stairs;
The constant companion of Stella.
Began a thousand faults to spy;
The ceiling hardly six feet high;
The smutty wainscot full of cracks,
And half the chairs with broken backs:
Her quarter's out at Lady Day,
She vows she will no longer stay
In lodgings, like a poor grizette,
While there are lodgings to be let.
Howe'er, to keep her spirits up,
She sent for company to sup,
When all the while you might remark
She strove in vain to ape Wood Park.
Two bottles call'd for, (half her store,
The cupboard could contain but four)
A supper worthy of herself,
Five nothings in five plates of delf.
Thus for a week the farce went on,
When, all her country savings gone,
She fell into her former scene,
Small beer, a herring, and the Dean.
Thus far in jest; though now, I fear,
You think my jesting too severe;
But poets, when a hint is new,
Regard not whether false or true:
Yet raillery gives no offence
Where truth has not the least pretence,
Nor can be more securely plac'd,
Than on a nymph of Stella's taste.
I must confess your wine and vittle
I was too hard upon a little;
Your table neat, your linen fine,
And, though in miniature, you shine;
Yet when you sigh to leave Wood Park,
The scene, the welcome, and the spark,
To languish in this odious town,
And pull your haughty stomach down,
We think you quite mistake the case;
The virtue lies not in the place;
For though my raillery were true,
A cottage is Wood Park with you.
STELLA'S BIRTH-DAY, 1724.
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 confin'd 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 Phœbus, young;
Nor ever nymph inspir'd to rhyme,
Unless, like Venus, in her prime.
At fifty-six, if this be true,
Am I a poet fit for you?
Or, at the age of forty-three,
Are you a subject fit for me?
Adieu! bright wit, and radiant eyes;
You must be grave, and I be wise.
Our fate in vain we would oppose;
But I'll be still your friend in prose:
Esteem and friendship to express
Will not require poetic dress,
And if the Muse deny her aid
To have them sung, they may be said.
But Stella, say, what evil tongue
Reports you are no longer young?
That Time sits with his scythe to mow
Where erst sat Cupid with his bow
That half your locks are turn'd to gray ?→→
I'll ne'er believe a word thy say.
'Tis true, but let it not be known,
My eyes are somewhat dimish grown;
For Nature, always in the right,
To your decays adapts my sight,
And wrinkles undistinguish'd pass,
For I'm asham'd to use a glass;
And till I see them with these eyes,
Whoever says you have them, lies.
No length of time can make you quit
Honour and virtue, sense and wit;
Thus you may still be young to me,
While I can better hear than see:
Oh, ne'er may Fortune show her spite,
To make me deaf and mend my sight!
STELLA'S BIRTH-DAY,
March 13, 1726.
THIS day, whate'er the Fates decree,
Shall still be kept with joy by me:
This day, then, let us not be told
That you are sick and I grown old,
Nor think on our approaching ills,
And talk of spectacles and pills:
To-morrow will be time enough
To hear such mortifying stuff.
Yet since from reason may be brought
A better and more pleasing thought,
Which can, in spite of all decays,
Support a few remaining days,
From not the gravest of divines
Accept, for once, some serious lines.
Although we now can form no more.
Long schemes of life, as heretofore,
Yet you, while time is running fast,
Can look with joy on what is past.
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