If this poem had as many graces as there are in your person, or in your mind, yet I could never hope it should pass through the world half so uncensured as you have done. But let its fortune be what it will, mine is happy enough, to have given me this occasion of assuring you that I am, with the truest esteem,
Madam, Your most obedient, humble servant, A. POPE.
What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things, I sing--This verse to Caryll,[367] Muse! is due: This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:[368] Slight is the subject, but not so the praise, 5 If she inspire, and he approve my lays.[369] Say what strange motive, goddess! could compel[370] A well-bred lord[371] t' assault a gentle belle? O say what stranger cause, yet unexplored, Could make a gentle belle reject a lord? 10 In tasks so bold, can little men engage, And in soft bosoms, dwells such mighty rage?[372] Sol through white curtains shot a tim'rous[373] ray,[374] And ope'd those eyes that must eclipse the day: Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake, 15 And sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake: Thrice rung the bell, the slipper knocked the ground,[375] And the pressed watch returned a silver sound. Belinda still her downy pillow pressed,[376] Her guardian sylph prolonged the balmy rest: 20 'Twas he had summoned to her silent bed The morning dream that hovered o'er her head, A youth more glitt'ring than a birth-night beau,[377] (That ev'n in slumber caused her cheek to glow) Seemed to her ear his winning lips to lay, 25 And thus in whispers said, or seemed to say. "Fairest of mortals, thou distinguished care Of thousand bright inhabitants of air! If e'er one vision touched thy infant thought, Of all the nurse and all the priest have taught; 30 Of airy elves by moonlight shadows seen, The silver token, and the circled green,[378] Or virgins visited by angel-pow'rs With golden crowns and wreaths of heav'nly flow'rs; Hear and believe! thy own importance know, 35 Nor bound thy narrow views to things below. Some secret truths, from learned pride concealed, To maids alone and children are revealed. What though no credit doubting wits may give? The fair and innocent shall still believe. 40 Know then, unnumbered spirits round thee fly, The light militia of the lower sky: These, though unseen, are ever on the wing, Hang o'er the box, and hover round the ring.[379] Think what an equipage thou hast in air, 45 And view with scorn two pages and a chair. As now your own, our beings were of old, And once inclosed in woman's beauteous mould; Thence, by a soft transition, we repair From earthly vehicles to these of air. 50 Think not, when woman's transient breath is fled, That all her vanities at once are dead;[380] Succeeding vanities she still regards, And though she plays no more, o'erlooks the cards. Her joy in gilded chariots, when alive, 55 And love of ombre, after death survive.[381] For when the fair in all their pride expire, To their first elements, their souls retire: The sprites of fiery termagants in flame Mount up, and take a salamander's name. 60 Soft yielding minds to water glide away, And sip, with nymphs, their elemental tea. The graver prude sinks downward to a gnome, In search of mischief still on earth to roam. The light coquettes in sylphs aloft repair, 65 And sport and flutter in the fields of air.[382] "Know further yet; whoever fair and chaste Rejects mankind, is by some sylph embraced: For spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease Assume what sexes and what shapes they please.[383] 70 What guards the purity of melting maids, In courtly balls, and midnight masquerades, Safe from the treach'rous friend, the daring spark, The glance by day, the whisper in the dark, When kind occasion prompts their warm desires, 75 When music softens, and when dancing fires? 'Tis but their sylph, the wise celestials know, Though honour is the word with men below.[384] "Some nymphs there are, too conscious of their face,[385] For life predestined to the gnomes' embrace. 80 These[386] swell their prospects and exalt their pride, When offers are disdained, and love denied: Then gay ideas crowd the vacant brain, While peers and dukes, and all their sweeping train, And garters, stars, and coronets appear, 85 And in soft sounds 'Your Grace' salutes their ear. 'Tis these that early taint the female soul, Instruct the eyes of young coquettes to roll, Teach infant-cheeks a bidden blush to know, And little hearts to flutter at a beau. 90 "Oft, when the world imagine women stray, The sylphs through mystic mazes guide their way, Through all the giddy circle they pursue, And old impertinence expel by new.