Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 7.djvu/247

Rh In you each virtue brighter shines, But my poetick vein declines; My harp will soon in vain be strung, And all your virtues left unsung. For none among the upstart race Of poets dare assume my place; Your worth will be to them unknown, They must have Stellas of their own; And thus, my stock of wit decay’d, I dying leave the debt unpaid, Unless Delany, as my heir, Will answer for the whole arrear.

'D my annual verse to pay, By duty bound, on Stella's day, Furnish'd with paper, pens, and ink, I gravely sat me down to think: I bit my nails, and scratch'd my head, But found my wit and fancy fled: Or, if with more than usual pain, A thought came slowly from my brain; It cost me lord knows how much time To shape it into sense and rhyme: And, what was yet a greater curse, Long thinking made my fancy worse. Forsaken