Part 3 — TO MR THOMAS SOUTHERN,76 ON HIS BIRTHDAY, 1742.

Resign'd to live, prepared to die, With not one sin, but poetry, This day Tom's fair account has run (Without a blot) to eighty-one. Kind Boyle, before his poet lays A table,77 with a cloth of bays; And Ireland, mother of sweet singers, Presents her harp78 still to his fingers. The feast, his towering genius marks In yonder wild goose and the larks; 10 The mushrooms show his wit was sudden; And for his judgment, lo, a pudden! Roast beef, though old, proclaims him stout, And grace, although a bard, devout. May Tom, whom Heaven sent down to raise The price of prologues79 and of plays, Be every birthday more a winner, Digest his thirty-thousandth dinner; Walk to his grave without reproach, And scorn a rascal and a coach. 20