Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
Advice to the Grub Street Verse-writers
1 Ye poets ragged and forlorn,
2 Down from your garrets haste;
3Ye rhymers, dead as soon as born,
4 Not yet consign'd to paste;
5 I know a trick to make you thrive;
6 O, 'tis a quaint device:
7Your still-born poems shall revive,
8 And scorn to wrap up spice.
9 Get all your verses printed fair,
10 Then let them well be dried;
11And Curll must have a special care
12 To leave the margin wide.
13 Lend these to paper-sparing Pope;
14 And when he sets to write,
15No letter with an envelope
16 Could give him more delight.
17 When Pope has fill'd the margins round,
18 Why then recall your loan;
19Sell them to Curll for fifty pound,
20 And swear they are your own.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Jonathan Swift, The Works, 4 vols. (Dublin: George Faulkner, 1735). B-10 9061 Fisher Rare Book Library (Toronto).
First publication date:
1735
RPO poem editor: N. J. Endicott
RP edition: 2RP 1.530.
Recent editing: 4:2002/5/29
Composition date:
1726
Form: Hymnal Measure
Rhyme: abab
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