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TO THE REV. DR. SWIFT, DEAN OF ST. PATRICK'S.
A BIRTHDAY POEM. Nov. 30, 1736.
TO you, my true and faithful friend
These tributary lines I send,
Which every year, thou best of deans,
I'll pay as long as life remains;
But did you know one half the pain,
What work, what racking of the brain,
It costs me for a single clause,
How long I'm forced to think and pause;
How long I dwell upon a proem,
To introduce your birthday poem,
How many blotted lines; I know it,
You'd have compassion for the poet.
Now, to describe the way I think,
I take in hand my pen and ink;
I rub my forehead, scratch my head,
Revolving all the rhymes I read.
Each complimental thought sublime,
Reduced by favourite Pope to rhyme,
And those by you to Oxford writ,
With true simplicity and wit.
Yet after all I cannot find
One panegyrick to my mind.
Now I begin to fret and blot,
Something I schemed but quite forgot;
My fancy turns a thousand ways
Through all the several forms of praise,
