Why should I stay? Both parties rage;
My vixen mistress squalls;
The wits in envious feuds engage;
And Homer (damn him!) calls.

The love of arts lies cold and dead
In Halifax's urn;

And not one muse of all he fed,
Has yet the grace to mourn.

My friends, by turns, my friends confound,
Betray, and are betray'd:
Poor Y***r's sold for fifty pound,
And B******Il is a jade.

Why make I friendships with the great,
When I no favour seek?

Or follow girls seven hours in eight?---
I need but once a week.

Still idle, with a busy air,
Deep whimsies to contrive;
The gayest valetudinaire,
Most thinking rake alive.

Solicitous for others' ends,
Though fond of dear repose;
Careless or drowsy with my friends,
And frolic with my foes.

Luxurious lobster-nights, farewel,
For sober, studious days!
And Burlington's delicious meal,
For sallads, tarts, and pease!

Adieu to all but Gay alone,

Whose soul sincere and free,
Loves all mankind, but flatters none,
And so may starve with me.

A DIALOGUE.

Pope. SINCE my old friend is grown 30 great,

As to be minister of state,

I'm told (but 'tis not true I hope)

That Craggs will be asham'd of Pope.

Craggs. Alas! if I am such a creature,

To grow the worse for growing greater;
Why, 'faith, in spite of all my brags,
'Tis Pope must be asham'd of Craggs.

EPIGRAM,

Engraved on the Collar of a Dog, which I gave to his Royal Highness.

IAM his Highness' dog at Kew;

Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

EPIGRAM,

Occasioned by an Invitation to Court.

N the lines that you sent are the muses and

IN

graces;

You've the nine in your wit, and the three in your

faces.

ON AN OLD GATE,

Erected in Chiswick Gardens.

GATE, how cam'st thou here?

Gate. I was brought from Chelsea last year,
Batter'd with wind and weather.
Inigo Jones put me together.

Sir Hans Sloane

Let me alone:

Burlington brought me hither.
17+2.

WHAT

A FRAGMENT.

are the falling rills, the pendent shades, The morning bowers, the evening colonades,

But soft recesses for th' uneasy mind

To sigh unheard in, to the passing wind!
So the struck deer, in some sequester'd part,
Lies down to die (the arrow in his heart);
There hid in shades, and wasting day by day,
Inly he bleeds, and pants his soul away.

VERSES LEFT BY MR. POPE,

On his lying in the same Bed which Wilmot the celebrated Earl of Rochester slept in, at Adder. bury, then belonging to the Duke of Argyle. July 9th, 1739.

WITH no poetic ardour fir'd

I press'd the bed where Wilmot lay;
That here he lov'd, or here expir'd,
Begets no numbers grave or gay.

But in thy roof, Argyle, are bred

Such thoughts as prompt the brave to lie Stretch'd out in honour's nobler bed, Beneath a nobler roof--the sky.

Such flames as high in patriots burn,
Yet stoop to bless a child or wife;
And such as wicked kings may mourn,
When freedom is more dear than life.

VERSES TO MR. C.

St. James's Place, London, October 22.

FEW

words are best; I wish you well;
Bethel, I'm told, will soon be here:
Some morning-walks along the Mall,
And evening friends, will end the year.

If, in this interval, between

The falling leaf and coming frost, You please to see, on Twit'nam green, Your friend, your poet, and your host; For three whole days you here may rest,

From office, business, news, and strife; And (what most folks would think a jest) Want nothing else, except your wife.

EPITAPHS.

His saltem accumulem donis, et fungar inani
Munere!

VIRG.

ON CHARLES EARL OF DORSET,

In the Church of Withyam, in Sussex.

ORSET, the grace of courts, the muses' pride,
Patron of arts, and judge of nature, died.
The scourge of pride, though sanctified or great,
Of fops in learning, and of knaves in state:
Yet soft his nature, though severe his lay,
His anger moral, and his wisdom gay.
Blest satirist! who touch'd the mean so true,
As show'd vice had his hate and pity too.

Blest courtier ! who could king and country please,
Yet sacred keep his friendships, and his ease.
Blest peer! his great forefathers' every grace
Reflecting, and reflected in his race;

Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets shine,
And patrons still, or poets, deck the line.