Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.

Stella’s Birthday, 1720

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)

ALL travellers at first incline

Where’er they see the fairest sign:

And if they find the chambers neat,

And like the liquor and the meat,

Will call again, and recommend

The Angel Inn to every friend.

What though the painting grows decay’d,

The house will never lose its trade:

Nay, though the treacherous tapster, Thomas,

Hangs a new Angel two doors from us,

As fine as daubers’ hands can make it,

In hopes that strangers may mistake it,

We think it both a shame and sin

To quit the true old Angel Inn.

Now this is Stella’s case in fact,

An angel’s face a little crack’d,

(Could poets or could painters fix

How angels look at thirty-six:)

This drew us in at first to find

In such a form an angel’s mind;

And every virtue now supplies

The fainting rays of Stella’s eyes.

See at her levee crowding swains,

Whom Stella freely entertains

With breeding, humour, wit, and sense,

And puts them but to small expense;

Their minds so plentifully fills,

And makes such reasonable bills,

So little gets for what she gives,

We really wonder how she lives!

And had her stock been less, no doubt

She must have long ago run out.

Then who can think we’ll quit the place,

When Doll hangs out a newer face?

Or stop and light at Chloe’s head,

With scraps and leavings to be fed?

Then, Chloe, still go on to prate

Of thirty-six and thirty-eight;

Pursue your trade of scandal-picking,

Your hints that Stella is no chicken;

Your innuendoes, when you tell us,

That Stella loves to talk with fellows:

And let me warn you to believe

A truth, for which your soul should grieve;

That should you live to see the day,

When Stella’s locks must all be gray,

When age must print a furrow’d trace

On every feature of her face;

Though you and all your senseless tribe,

Could art, or time, or nature bribe,

To make you look like Beauty’s Queen,

And hold for ever at fifteen;

No bloom of youth can ever blind

The cracks and wrinkles of your mind:

All men of sense will pass your door,

And crowd to Stella’s at four-score.