The Poetry Corner

To Stella On Her Birth-Day, 1721-2

By Jonathan Swift

While, Stella, to your lasting praise The Muse her annual tribute pays, While I assign myself a task Which you expect, but scorn to ask; If I perform this task with pain, Let me of partial fate complain; You every year the debt enlarge, I grow less equal to the charge: In you each virtue brighter shines, But my poetic vein declines; My harp will soon in vain be strung, And all your virtues left unsung. For none among the upstart race Of poets dare assume my place; Your worth will be to them unknown, They must have Stellas of their own; And thus, my stock of wit decay'd, I dying leave the debt unpaid, Unless Delany, as my heir, Will answer for the whole arrear.