Advice to the Grub Street Verse-writers

by Jonathan Swift

Ye poets ragged and forlorn,

Down from your garret 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.