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.