Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO MR. THOMAS SOUTHERNE, ON HIS BIRTHDAY, 1742, by ALEXANDER POPE


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TO MR. THOMAS SOUTHERNE, ON HIS BIRTHDAY, 1742, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Resigned to live, prepared to die
Last Line: And scorn a rascal and a coach.
Subject(s): Birthdays; Southerne, Thomas (1660-1746); Southern, Thomas


RESIGNED to live, prepared 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 towering genius marks
In yonder wild gooee and the larks!
The mushrooms show his wit was sudden!
And for his judgement, lo, a pudden!
Roast beef, though old, proclaims him stout,
And grace, although a bard, devout.
May Tom, whom Heaven sent down to raise
The price of prologues and of plays,
Be every birthday more a winner,
Digest his thirty-thousandth dinner;
Walk to his grave without reproach,
And scorn a rascal and a coach.





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