Nature in pity has denied you shape, Else how should mortals Flavia’s chain escape? Your radiant aspect, and your rosy bloom, Without this form would bring a general doom: At once our ruin and relief we see, At sight are captives, and at sight are free.
How old may Phillis be, you ask, Whose beauty thus all hearts engages? To answer is no easy task; For she really has two ages.
Stiff in brocade, and pinched in stays, Her patches, paint, and jewels on; All day let Envy view her face, And Phillis is but twenty-one.
Paint, patches, jewels, laid aside, At night astronomers agree, The evening has the day belied. And Phillis is full forty-three.
Here Tim the tapster lies, who drew good beer, But now, drawn to his end, he draws no more; Yes, still he draws from every friend a tear, Water he draws, who drew good beer before.
_On seeing an engraved Portrait of the late Dr. Cheyne ill done._
Nature and Vandergutch in this agree, Unfinished she has left him, so has he.
_On the death of Mary, Countess of Pembroke._
Underneath this sable hearse Lies the subject of all verse, Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother: Death, ere thou hast killed another, Fair, and learned, good as she, Time shall throw his dart at thee.
Old Orpheus played so well he moved old Nick, Whilst thou mov’st nothing but thy fiddle-stick.
_Written on a Glass with the Earl of Chesterfield’s diamond pencil._
Accept a miracle instead of wit; See two dull lines by Stanhope’s pencil writ.
Doris, a widow, past her prime, Her spouse long dead, her wailing doubles; Her real griefs increase by time, And what abates, improves her troubles. Those pangs her prudent hopes suppressed, Impatient now she cannot smother: How should the helpless woman rest? One’s gone―nor can she get another.
Leave off thy paint, perfumes, and youthful dress, And nature’s failing honestly confess; Double we see those faults which art would mend, Plain downright ugliness would less offend.
In church, the prayer-book and the fan displayed, And the solemn curtesies, show the wily maid; At plays, the leering looks, and wanton airs, And nods, and smiles, are fondly meant for snares. Alas! vain charmer, you no lovers get; There you seem hypocrite, and here coquet.