Alexander Pope: Minor poems Edited by Norman Ault: Completed by John Butt |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
| I. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
TOM SOUTHERNE's Birth-day Dinner at LD. ORRERY's. |
 | Alexander Pope: Minor poems |  |
398
TOM SOUTHERNE's Birth-day Dinner at LD. ORRERY's.
Resign'd to live, prepar'd 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 with a cloth of bays;
And Ireland, mother of sweet singers,
Presents her harp still to his fingers,
The feast, his towring genius marks
In yonder wildgoose, and the larks!
The mushrooms shew his wit was sudden!
And for his judgment lo a pudden!
399
And grace, altho' a bard, devout.
May Tom, whom heav'n sent down to raise
The price of prologues and of plays,
Be ev'ry birth-day more a winner,
Digest his thirty-thousandth dinner;
Walk to his grave without reproach,
And scorn a rascal and a coach!
| Alexander Pope: Minor poems | |