Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/468



O 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, Rh