Has life no fournefs, drawn fo near its end?
Can't thou endure a foe, forgive a friend?
Has age but melted the rough parts away,
As winter-fruits grow mild ere they decay?
Or will you think, my friend, your business done, When, of a hundred thorns, you pull out one? 321
h Learn to live well, or fairly make your will ; You've play'd, and lov'd, and eat, and drank your fill: Walk fober off; before a fprightlier age
Comes titt'ring on, and shoves you from the stage:
Leave fuch to trifle with more grace and ease,
Whom Folly pleafes, and whofe Follies please.
Natales grate numeras? ignofcis amicis?
Lenior et melior fis accedente fenecta?
Quid te exemta levat fpinis de pluribus una
h Vivere fi recte nefcis, decede peritis.
Lufifti fatis, edifti fatis, atque bibisti:
Tempus abire tibi eft: ne potum largius aequo
Rideat, et pulfet lafciva decentius aetas.
Quid vetat et nofmet Lucili fcripta legentes Quaerere, num illius, num rerum dura negârit Verficulos natura magis factos, et euntes
Yes; thank my ftars! as early as I knew
This Town, I had the fenfe to hate it too:
Yet here, as ev'n in Hell, there must be ftill
One Giant-Vice, fo excellently ill,
That all befide, one pities, not abhors;
As who knows Sappho, fmiles at other whores.
I grant that Poetry's a crying fin;
It brought (no doubt) th' Excife and Army in: Catch'd like the Plague, or Love, the Lord knows how, But that the cure is ftarving, all allow.
Yet like the Papift's, is the Poet's state,
Poor and difarm'd, and hardly worth your hate!
Here a lean Bard, whofe wit could never give
Himself a dinner, makes an Actor livè :
IR, though (I thank God for it) I do hate Perfectly all this town: yet there's one state In all ill things, fo excellently best,
That hate towards them, breeds pity towards the rest.
Though Poetry, indeed, be fuch a fin,
As, I think, that brings dearth and Spaniards in :
Though like the peftilence and old-fashion'd-love,
Ridlingly it catch men, and doth remove
Never, till it be starv'd out; yet their state
Is poor, difarm'd, like Papifts, not worth hate.
One (like a wretch, which at barre judg❜d as dead,
Yet prompts him which stands next, and cannot read,
The Thief condemn'd, in law already dead,
So prompts, and faves a rogue who cannot read.
Thus as the pipes of fome carv'd Organ move,
The gilded puppets dance and mount above.
Heav'd by the breath th' inspiring bellows blow:
Th' infpiring bellows lie and pant below.
One fings the Fair: but fongs no longer move;
No rat is rhym'd to death, nor maid to love:
In love's, in nature's fpite, the fiege they hold,
And scorn the flesh, the dev'l, and all but gold.
These write to Lords, fome mean reward to get,
As needy beggars fing at doors for meat.
Those write because all write, and so have still
Excufe for writing, and for writing ill.
Wretched indeed! but far more wretched yet
Is he who makes his meal on others wit:
'Tis chang'd, no doubt, from what it was before;
His rank digeftion makes it wit no more:
And faves his life) gives Idiot Actors means
(Starving himself) to live by's labour'd fcenes.
As in fome Organs, Puppits dance above,
And bellows pant below, which them do move.
One would move love by rhymes; but witchcraft's
Bring not now their old fears, nor their old harms; Rams and flings now are filly battery,
Pistolets are the best artillery.
And they who write to Lords, rewards to get,
Are they not like fingers at doors for meat?
And they who write, because all write, have still
That 'fcufe for writing, and for writing ill.
But he is worst, who beggarly doth chaw
Others wits fruits, and in his ravenous maw
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