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. 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 they say. 'Tis true, but let it not be known, My eyes are somewhat dimmish grown; For nature, always in the right, To your decays adapts my sight; And wrinkles undistinguished pass, For I'm ashamed 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. O ne'er may Fortune show her spite, To make me deaf, and mend my sight!