Classic Poem

TO A LADY

WHO PERMITTED THE AUTHOR TO READ, WHEN THE FAMILY WERE IN BED, ON CONDITION THAT HE WOULD WRITE A RECEIPT FOR HER COLD .

O H ! lively Fancy, vision'd maid,
Fain would I feel thy magic power;
Come, Fairy, cheer my midnight shade,
And guide me in the solemn hour.
Oh! find me out a sov'reign pill,
For see the fair Belinda's ill.
When long a cruel cough had seiz'd her,
The charmer deign'd to ask a cure;
With broth, pills, gruel, long I teiz'd her,
She deigns to take, but finds no cure.
No — vain are gruel, broth, and pill;
For yet the fair Belinda's ill.

High-perch'd, methought, my fairy fat,
And simp'ring cry'd, Your skill is vain:
Here I have hit upon it pat,
Rouse up your wits, and pen a strain.
A rhyme, beyond the doctor's skill,
Revives Belinda, when she's ill.
A rhyme well turn'd her ear will please,
Cheer, tickle, aid the perspiration;
When coughs and colds the ladies seize,
The best physician in the nation
Is a brisk bard — and ev'n tho' ill
His Rhyme, it proves the sov'reign pill.

A rhyme ill-turn'd will hurt her ear,
And rouse Belinda into ire:
I hear, ev'n now, the cruel dear
Cry, Betty, throw it in the fire.
But, can I call Belinda cruel?
No, rhymes shall make poetic fuel,
And give new powers to broth and gruel.