JONATHAN SWIFT: ADVICE TO THE GRUB STREET VERSE-WRITERS

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Jonathan Swift
(1667–1745)

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.

Lend these to paper-sparing Pope;
And when he sets to write,
No letter with an envelope
Could give him more delight.

When Pope has fill’d the margins round,
Why then recall your loan;
Sell them to Curll for fifty pound,
And swear they are your own.

Jonathan Swift poetry
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