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EXTEMPORE. TO MRS. SHEPHERD, IN PAYMENT OF A SHEET OF PAPER.
  
  
  
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EXTEMPORE. TO MRS. SHEPHERD, IN PAYMENT OF A SHEET OF PAPER.

Though Poets deal in black and white,
And often draw a Bill at sight,
And mark their Drafts on paper;
And though they're drawn upon a God,
What may to money'd Men seem odd,
They 're little more than vapour.

178

Nay, should Apollo undersign,
And the Bill,—back'd by all the Nine,—
Gain credit in Parnass,
Good Men would spurn it at the Bank;
And Newland, thinking it but blank,
Protest it must not pass.
Yet currency it sure may gain,
Not only where the Muses reign,
But on a richer spot;
When thus to Worth it would impart
The warmest wishes of the Heart
In the good Shepherd's cot.