I hate, I loath his bafe perfidious name.
Yet if he should but feign a rival flame?
But Chloe boafts and triumphs in my pains,
To her he's faithful, 'tis to me he feigns.
Thus love-fick Lydia rav'd. Her maid appears;
A band-box in her fteady hand fhe bears.
How well this ribband's glofs becomes your face,
She cries, in raptures! then, fo fweet a lace!
How charmingly you look! fo bright! fo fair!
'Tis to your eyes the head-drefs owes its air.
Straight Lydia fmil'd; the comb adjufts her locks,
And at the Play-house Harry keeps her box.
And coaches to the Patron's Levèe roll'd,
When Doris rofe. And now through all
From flow'ry Tea exhales a fragrant fume.
Cup after cup they fipt, and talk'd by fits,
For Doris here, and there Melanthe fits.
Doris was young, a laughter-loving dame,
Nice of her own alike and others fame;
Melanthe's tongue could well a tale advance,
And fooner gave than funk a circumstance :
Lock'd in her mem'ry secrets never dy'd ;
Doris begun, Melanthe thus reply'd.
Sylvia the vain fantastic Fop admires,
The Rake's loose gallantry her bofom fires;
Sylvia like that is vain, like this fhe roves,
In liking them she but her felf approves.
Laura rails on at men, the sex reviles,
Their vice condemns, or at their folly smiles.
Why should her tongue in just resentment fail,
Since men at her with equal freedom rail?
Laft Masquerade was Sylvia nymph-like seen,
Her hand a crook fuftain'd, her dress was green;
An am'rous fhepherd led her through the croud,
The nymph was innocent, the shepherd vow'd;
But nymphs their innocence with fhepherds truft;
So both withdrew, as nymph and shepherd must.
Name but the licence of the modern stage,
Laura takes fire, and kindles into rage;
The whining Tragic love the fcarce can bear,
But naufeous Comedy ne'er fhock'd her ear;
Yet in the gall'ry mobb'd, fhe fits fecure,
And laughs at jefts that turn the Box demure.
Truft not, ye Ladies, to your beauty's pow'r,
For beauty withers like a fhrivell'd flow'r;
Yet those fair flow'rs that Sylvia's temples bind,
Fade not with fudden blights or winter's wind;
Like thofe her face defies the rolling years,
For art her roses and her charms repairs.
MELANT HE.
Laura defpifes ev'ry outward grace,
The wanton fparkling eye, the blooming face;
The beauties of the foul are all her pride,
For other beauties nature has deny'd;
If affectation fhow a beauteous mind,
Lives there a man to Laura's merits blind?
Sylvia be fure defies the town's reproach,
Whofe Deshabille is foil'd in hackney coach;
What though the fash was clos'd, muft we conclude,
That she was yielding, when her Fop was rude?
MELANTHE.
Laura learnt caution at too dear a coft.
What Fair could e'er retrieve her honour loft ?
Secret she loves; and who the nymph can blame,
Who durft not own a footman's vulgar flame ?
Though Laura's homely tafte defcend fo low;
Her footman well may vye with Sylvia's Beau.
Yet why should Laura think it a disgrace,
When proud Miranda's groom wears Flander's lace?
What, though for mufick Cynthio boasts an ear?
Robin perhaps can hum an Opera air.
Cynthio can bow, takes fnuff, and dances well,
Robin talks common sense, can write and spell;
Sylvia's vain fancy dress and show admires,
But 'tis the man alone whom Laura fires.
Plato's wife morals Laura's foul improve:
And this no doubt must be Platonic love!
Her foul to gen'rous acts was still inclind;
What shows more virtue than an humble mind?
|