Directions for a Birthday Song

1729

To form a just and finish'd piece, Take twenty gods of Rome or Greece, Whose godships are in chief request, And fit your present subject best; And, should it be your hero's case, To have both male and female race, Your business must be to provide A score of goddesses beside.

Some call their monarchs sons of Saturn, For which they bring a modern pattern; Because they might have heard of one,[1] Who often long'd to eat his son; But this I think will not go down, For here the father kept his crown.

Why, then, appoint him son of Jove, Who met his mother in a grove; To this we freely shall consent, Well knowing what the poets meant; And in their sense, 'twixt me and you, It may be literally true.[2]

Next, as the laws of verse require, He must be greater than his sire; For Jove, as every schoolboy knows, Was able Saturn to depose; And sure no Christian poet breathing Would be more scrupulous than a Heathen; Or, if to blasphemy it tends. That's but a trifle among friends.

Your hero now another Mars is, Makes mighty armies turn their a--s: Behold his glittering falchion mow Whole squadrons at a single blow; While Victory, with wings outspread, Flies, like an eagle, o'er his head; His milk-white steed upon its haunches, Or pawing into dead men's paunches; As Overton has drawn his sire, Still seen o'er many an alehouse fire. Then from his arm hoarse thunder rolls, As loud as fifty mustard bowls; For thunder still his arm supplies, And lightning always in his eyes. They both are cheap enough in conscience, And serve to echo rattling nonsense. The rumbling words march fierce along, Made trebly dreadful in your song.

Sweet poet, hired for birth-day rhymes, To sing of wars, choose peaceful times. What though, for fifteen years and more, Janus has lock'd his temple-door; Though not a coffeehouse we read in Has mention'd arms on this side Sweden; Nor London Journals, nor the Postmen, Though fond of warlike lies as most men; Thou still with battles stuff thy head full: For, must thy hero not be dreadful? Dismissing Mars, it next must follow Your conqueror is become Apollo: That he's Apollo is as plain as That Robin Walpole is Maecenas; But that he struts, and that he squints, You'd know him by Apollo's prints. Old Phoebus is but half as bright, For yours can shine both day and night. The first, perhaps, may once an age Inspire you with poetic rage; Your Phoebus Royal, every day, Not only can inspire, but pay.

Then make this new Apollo sit Sole patron, judge, and god of wit. "How from his altitude he stoops To raise up Virtue when she droops; On Learning how his bounty flows, And with what justice he bestows; Fair Isis, and ye banks of Cam! Be witness if I tell a flam, What prodigies in arts we drain, From both your streams, in George's reign. As from the flowery bed of Nile"-- But here's enough to show your style. Broad innuendoes, such as this, If well applied, can