When Much Dispute Has Past, We Find

See How The World Its Veterans Rewards! A Youth Of Frolics, An Old Age Of Cards; Fair To No Purpose, Artful To No End, Young Without Lovers, Old Without A Friend; A Fop Their Passion, But Their Prize A Sot; Alive Ridiculous, And Dead Forgot.

But Touch Me, And No Minister So Sore. Whoe'er Offends, At Some Unlucky Time Slides Into Verse, And Hitches In A Rhyme, Sacred To Ridicule His Whole Life Long, And The Sad Burthen Of Some Merry Song.

True Wit Is Nature To Advantage Dressed; What Oft Was Thought, But Ne'er So Well Expressed.

For He Lives Twice Who Can At Once Employ, The Present Well, And E'en The Past Enjoy.

What Woeful Stuff This Madrigal Would Be, In Some Starved Hackney Sonneteer, Or Me! But Let A Lord Once Own The Happy Lines, How The Wit Brightens! How The Style Refines!