To Stella, on her birthday

While, Stella, to your lasting praise

The Muse her annual tribute pays,

While I assign myself a task

Which you expect, but scorn to ask;

If I perform this task with pain,

Let me of partial fate complain;

You every year the debt enlarge,

I grow less equal to the charge:

In you each virtue brighter shines,

But my poetic vein declines;

My harp will soon in vain be strung,

And all your virtues left unsung.

For none among the upstart race

Of poets dare assume my place;

Your worth will be to them unknown,

They must have Stellas of their own;

And thus, my stock of wit decay'd,

I dying leave the debt unpaid,

Unless Delany, as my heir,

Will answer for the whole arrear.