--
Of Gods I only quote the best,
But you may hook in all the rest.
Now, birth-day bard, with joy proceed
To praise your empress and her breed;
First of the first, to vouch your lies,
Bring all the females of the skies;
The Graces, and their mistress, Venus,
Must venture down to entertain us:
With bended knees when they adore her,
What dowdies they appear before her!
Nor shall we think you talk at random,
For Venus might be her great-grandam:
Six thousand years has lived the Goddess,
Your heroine hardly fifty odd is;
Besides, your songsters oft have shown
That she has Graces of her own:
Three Graces by Lucina brought her,
Just three, and every Grace a daughter;
Here many a king his heart and crown
Shall at their snowy feet lay down:
In royal robes, they come by dozens
To court their English German cousins:
Beside a pair of princely babies,
That, five years hence, will both be Hebes.
Now see her seated in her throne
With genuine lustre, all her own:
Poor Cynthia never shone so bright,
Her splendour is but borrow'd light;
And only with her brother linkt
Can shine, without him is extinct.
But Carolina shines the clearer
With neither spouse nor brother near her:
And darts her beams o'er both our isles,
Though George is gone a thousand miles.
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