Him for a happy man I own,
Whose fortune is not overgrown;[2]
And happy he who wisely knows
To use the gifts that Heaven bestows;
Or, if it please the powers divine,
Can suffer want and not repine.
The man who infamy to shun
Into the arms of death would run;
That man is ready to defend,
With life, his country or his friend.
[Footnote 1: With whom Swift was in constant correspondence, more or less
friendly. See Journal to Stella, "Prose Works," vol. ii, _passim_; and
an account of King, vol. iii, p. 241, note.--_W. E. B._]
[Footnote 2:
"Non possidentem multa vocaveris
recte beatum: rectius occupat
nomen beati, qui deorum
muneribus sapienter uti
duramque callet pauperiem pati,
pejusque leto flagitium timet."]
TO MR. DELANY,[1]
OCT. 10, 1718 NINE IN THE MORNING
To you whose virtues, I must own
With shame, I have too lately known;
To you, by art and nature taught
To be the man I long have sought,
Had not ill Fate, perverse and blind,
Placed you in life too far behind:
Or, what I should repine at more,
Placed me in life too far before:
To you the Muse this verse bestows,
Which might as well have been in prose;
No thought, no fancy, no sublime,
But simple topics told in rhyme.
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