Resign'd to live, prepar'd to die, <br />With not one sin, but poetry, <br />This day Tom's fair account has run <br />(Without a blot) to eighty-one. <br />Kind Boyle, before his poet, lays <br />A table, with a cloth of bays; <br />And Ireland, mother of sweet singers, <br />Presents her harp still to his fingers. <br />The feast, his tow'ring genius marks <br />In yonder wild goose and the larks! <br />The mushrooms shew his wit was sudden! <br />And for his judgement, lo a pudden! <br />Roast beef, tho' old, proclaims him stout, <br />And grace, altho' a bard, devout. <br />May Tom, whom heav'n send down to raise <br />The price of prologues and of plays, <br />He ev'ry birth-day more a winner, <br />Digest his thirty thousandth dinner; <br />Walk to his grave without reproach, <br />And scorn a rascal and a coach.<br /><br />Alexander Pope<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-mr-thomas-southern-on-his-birth-day/
