Classic Poem

Kind indulgent Nature gives
Her favours to each thing that lives;
Her hand impartial envies none,
Each son of her's an only son.
" Her gifts are various. " — True, indeed;
But various is each creature's need:
Pride and tatters, scholars claim;
Blockheads, family and fame;
City coxcombs, impudence;
Plodding peasants, common sense;
Statesmen, promises and lies;
Sages, cockle shells and flies;
Parsons, gravity of face,
And avarice, that saving grace;
Wits, and bucks, and bloods, and smarts,
Rags, and oaths, and russled shirts;
And all Apollo's flying fellows,
Laurel crowns and empty bellies.
In short, what mortal does not share
Of nature's fond maternal care?
Ev'n, B AVIUS , you, whom hardly we
Admit her offspring, hardly she;
(No wonder, certes , for you were
Beholden more to Chance than her):
Yet from the tender matron got
Want of ear and strength of throat,
Staring, filly ignorance,
Nor common, nor uncommon sense.

Go on, industrious chief! go on;
First merit, and then wear the crown!
Another stab for ay secures
The spoils of murder'd muses yours.