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4 Then wilt thou sigh, when in each frown
A hateful wrinkle more appears;
And putting peevish humours on,
Seems but the sad effect of years;
Kindness itself too weak a charm will prove,
To raise the feeble fires of agèd love.

5 Forced compliments and formal bows
Will show thee just above neglect:
The heat with which thy lover glows,
Will settle into cold respect;

A talking dull platonic I shall turn;
Learn to be civil, when I cease to burn.

6 Then shun the ill, and know, my dear, Kindness and constancy will prove The only pillars fit to bear

So vast a weight as that of love:

If thou canst wish to make my flames endure,
Thine must be very fierce, and very pure.

7 Haste, Celia, haste, while youth invites,
Obey kind Cupid's present voice;
Fill every sense with soft delights,

And give thy soul a loose to joys;
Let millions of repeated blisses prove,
That thou all kindness art, and I all love.

8 Be mine, and only mine; take care

Thy looks, thy thoughts, thy dreams to guide To me alone; nor come so far,

As liking any youth beside:

What men e'er court thee, fly them, and believe,

They're serpents all, and thou the tempted Eve.

9 So shall I court thy dearest truth,

When beauty ceases to engage;
So thinking on thy charming youth,
I'll love it o'er again in age;

So time itself our raptures shall improve,
While still we wake to joy, and live to love.

AN EPISTLE TO FLEETWOOD SHEPHERD,1

SIR,

ESQ.

BURLEIGH, MAY 14, 1689.

As once a twelvemonth to the priest,
Holy at Rome, here antichrist,
The Spanish king presents a jennet,
To show his love;-that's all that's in it:
For if his holiness would thump

His reverend bum 'gainst horse's rump,
He might be equipped from his own stable
With one more white, and eke more able.
Or as with gondolas, and men, his
Good excellence the Duke of Venice
(I wish, for rhyme, it had been the king)
Sails out, and gives the Gulf a ring;
Which trick of state, he wisely maintains,
Keeps kindness up 'twixt old acquaintance:
For else, in honest truth the sea
Has much less need of gold, than he.

Or, not to rove, and pump one's fancy

For popish similes beyond sea;

As folks from mud-walled tenement

Bring landlords pepper-corn for rent;

1 A friend of Lord Dorset's, who introduced the poet to that Earl.

B

10

20

Present a turkey, or a hen

To those might better spare them ten;
Even so, with all submission, I
(For first men instance, then apply)
Send you each year a homely letter,
Who may return me much a better.
Then take it, Sir, as it was writ,
To pay respect and not show wit;
Nor look askew at what it saith;
There's no petition in it,-'Faith.

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Here some would scratch their heads, and try

What they should write, and how, and why;
But I conceive, such folks are quite in
Mistakes, in theory of writing.

If once for principle 'tis laid,

That thought is trouble to the head;

I argue thus: the world agrees,

That he writes well who writes with ease;

Then he, by sequel logical,

Writes best who never thinks at all.

Verse comes from Heaven, like inward light;

Mere human pains can ne'er come by 't:
The God, not we, the poem makes;
We only tell folks what he speaks.
Hence when anatomists discourse,
How like brutes' organs are to ours;
They grant, if higher powers think fit,
A bear might soon be made a wit;
And that for any thing in nature,

Pigs might squeak love-odes, dogs bark satire.
Memnon, though stone, was counted vocal;
But 'twas the God, meanwhile, that spoke all.
Rome oft has heard a cross haranguing,
With prompting priest behind the hanging:

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The wooden head resolved the question;
While you and Pettis helped the jest on.

Your crabbed rogues, that read Lucretius,
Are against gods, you know, and teach us,
The God makes not the poet; but
The thesis, vice-versâ put,

Should Hebrew-wise be understood;
And means, the Poet makes the God.
Egyptian gardeners thus are said to
Have set the leeks they after prayed to;
And Romish bakers praise the deity
They chipped, while yet in its paniety.
That when you poets swear and cry,
The God inspires; I rave, I die;
If inward wind does truly swell ye,
It must be the colic in your belly;
That writing is but just like dice,
And lucky mains make people wise;
That jumbled words, if fortune throw 'em,
Shall, well as Dryden, form a poem ;
Or make a speech, correct and witty,
know who-at the committee.
So atoms dancing round the centre,
They urge, made all things at a venture.

As

you

But granting matters should be spoke
By method, rather than by luck;
This may confine their younger styles,
Whom Dryden pedagogues at Will's;
But never could be meant to tie
Authentic wits, like you and I:

For as young children, who are tried in
Go-carts, to keep their steps from sliding,
When members knit, and legs grow stronger,
Make use of such machine no longer;

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But leap pro libitu, and scout
On horse called hobby, or without;
So when at school we first declaim,
Old Busby walks us in a theme,
Whose props support our infant vein,
And help the rickets in the brain;
But when our souls their force dilate,
And thoughts grow up to wit's estate,
In verse or prose, we write or chat,
Not six-pence matter upon what.

"Tis not how well an author says; But 'tis how much, that gathers praise. Tonson, who is himself a wit,

Counts writers' merits by the sheet.

Thus each should down with all he thinks,
As boys eat bread, to fill up chinks.

Kind Sir, I should be glad to see you;
I hope you're well; so God be wi' you;
Was all I thought at first to write ;-
But things, since then, are altered quite;
Fancies flow in, and Muse flies high,
So God knows when my clack will lie;
I must, Sir, prattle on, as afore,
And beg your pardon yet this half hour.

So at pure barn of loud Non-con,
Where with my grannam I have gone,
When Lobb had sifted all his text,
And I well hoped the pudding next,
Now TO APPLY, has plagued me more
Than all his villain cant before.

For your religion, first, of her Your friends do savoury things aver;

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They say she's honest as your claret,

Not soured with cant, nor stummed with merit.

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