Tormented with incessant pains, <br />Can I devise poetic strains? <br />Time was, when I could yearly pay <br />My verse to Stella's native day: <br />But now unable grown to write, <br />I grieve she ever saw the light. <br />Ungrateful! since to her I owe <br />That I these pains can undergo. <br />She tends me like an humble slave; <br />And, when indecently I rave, <br />When out my brutish passions break, <br />With gall in every word I speak, <br />She with soft speech my anguish cheers, <br />Or melts my passions down with tears; <br />Although 'tis easy to descry <br />She wants assistance more than I; <br />Yet seems to feel my pains alone, <br />And is a stoic in her own. <br />When, among scholars, can we find <br />So soft and yet so firm a mind? <br />All accidents of life conspire <br />To raise up Stella's virtue higher; <br />Or else to introduce the rest <br />Which had been latent in her breast. <br />Her firmness who could e'er have known, <br />Had she not evils of her own? <br />Her kindness who could ever guess, <br />Had not her friends been in distress? <br />Whatever base returns you find <br />From me, dear Stella, still be kind. <br />In your own heart you'll reap the fruit, <br />Though I continue still a brute. <br />But, when I once am out of pain, <br />I promise to be good again; <br />Meantime, your other juster friends <br />Shall for my follies make amends; <br />So may we long continue thus, <br />Admiring you, you pitying us.<br /><br />Jonathan Swift<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-stella-written-on-the-day-of-her-birth-march-13-1723-4-but-not-on-the-subject-when-i-was-sick-in-bed/
