Jonathan Swift



                   Advice to the Grub Street Verse-writers


                   Ye poets ragged and forlorn,
                     Down from your garrets haste;
                   Ye rhymers, dead as soon as born,
                     Not yet consign'd to paste;

                   I know a trick to make you thrive;
                     O, 'tis a quaint device:
                   Your still-born poems shall revive,
                     And scorn to wrap up spice.

                   Get all your verses printed fair,
                     Then let them well be dried;
                   And Curll must have a special care
                     To leave the margin wide.

                   Lend these to paper-sparing Pope;
                     And when he sets to write,
                   No letter with an envelope
                     Could give him more delight.

                   When Pope has fill'd the margins round,
                     Why then recall your loan;
                   Sell them to Curll for fifty pound,
                     And swear they are your own.

                   First publication date: 1726


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