Poem by 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.

1. Dean Swift at Sir Arthur Acheson’s, in the North of Ireland
2. At Holyhead
3. Drapier’s Hill
4. Verses on Blenheim
5. On Stella's Birth-day 1719

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