Or else poor Stella may be starved. 
  May Bec have many an evening nap,
With Tiger slabbering in her lap;
But always take a special care
She does not overset the chair;
Still be she curious, never hearken
To any speech but Tiger’s barking! 
  And when she’s in another scene,
Stella long dead, but first the Dean,
May fortune and her coffee get her
Companions that will please her better! 
Whole afternoons will sit beside her,
Nor for neglects or blunders chide her. 
A goodly set as can be found
Of hearty gossips prating round;
Fresh from a wedding or a christening,
To teach her ears the art of listening,
And please her more to hear them tattle,
Than the Dean storm, or Stella rattle. 
  Late be her death, one gentle nod,
When Hermes,[3] waiting with his rod,
Shall to Elysian fields invite her,
Where there will be no cares to fright her!

[Footnote 1:  Mrs. Rebecca Dingley.]

[Footnote 2:  Mrs. Dingley’s favourite lap-dog.  See next page.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 3:  Mercury.—­Virg., “Aeneid,” iv.]

ON THE COLLAR OF TIGER,

MRS. DINGLEY’S LAP-DOG

Pray steal me not; I’m Mrs. Dingley’s,
Whose heart in this four-footed thing lies.

STELLA’S BIRTH-DAY

MARCH 13, 1726-7

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. 
  Were future happiness and pain
A mere contrivance of the brain;
As atheists argue, to entice
And fit their proselytes for vice;
(The only comfort they propose,
To have companions in their woes;)
Grant this the case; yet sure ’tis hard
That virtue, styled its own reward,
And by all sages understood
To be the chief of human good,
Should acting die; nor leave behind
Some lasting pleasure in the mind,
Which, by remembrance, will assuage
Grief, sickness, poverty, and age;
And strongly shoot a radiant dart
To shine through life’s declining part. 
  Say, Stella, feel you no content,
Reflecting on a life well spent? 
Your skilful hand employ’d to save
Despairing wretches from the grave;
And then supporting with your store
Those whom you dragg’d from death before?