From LOVE OF FAME
ON WOMEN
Such blessings Nature pours,
O'erstocked mankind enjoy but half her stores:
In distant wilds, by human eyes unseen,
She rears her flowers, and spreads her velvet green:
Pure, gurgling rills the lonely desert trace,
And waste their music on the savage race.
Is Nature then a niggard of her bliss?
Repine we guiltless in a world like this?
But our lewd tastes her lawful charms refuse,
And painted art's depraved allurements choose.
Such Fulvia's passion for the town; fresh air
(An odd effect!) gives vapours to the fair;
Green fields, and shady groves, and crystal springs,
And larks, and nightingales, are odious things;
But smoke, and dust, and noise, and crowds, delight;
And to be pressed to death, transports her quite:
Where silver rivulets play through flowery meads,
And woodbines give their sweets, and limes their shades,
Black kennels' absent odours she regrets,
And stops her nose at beds of violets.
* * * * *
Few to good-breeding make a just pretense;
Good-breeding is the blossom of good-sense;
The last result of an accomplished mind,
With outward grace, the body's virtue, joined.
A violated decency now reigns;
And nymphs for failings take peculiar pains.
With Chinese painters modern toasts agree,
The point they aim at is deformity:
They throw their persons with a hoyden air
Across the room, and toss into the chair.
So far their commerce with mankind is gone,
They, for our manners, have exchanged their own.
The modest look, the castigated grace,
The gentle movement, and slow-measured pace,
For which her lovers died, her parents prayed,
Are indecorums with the modern maid.
* * * * *
What swarms of amorous grandmothers I see!
And misses, ancient in iniquity!
What blasting whispers, and what loud declaiming!
What lying, drinking, bawding, swearing, gaming!
Friendship so cold, such warm incontinence;
Such griping avarice, such profuse expense;
Such dead devotion, such a zeal for crimes;
Such licensed ill, such masquerading times;
Such venal faith, such misapplied applause;
Such flattered guilt, and such inverted laws!
Such dissolution through the whole I find,
'Tis not a world, but chaos of mankind.
Since Sundays have no balls, the well-dressed belle
Shines in the pew, but smiles to hear of Hell;
And casts an eye of sweet disdain on all
Who listen less to Collins than St. Paul.
Atheists have been but rare; since Nature's birth
Till now, she-atheists ne'er appeared on earth.
Ye men of deep researches, say, whence springs
This daring character, in timorous things?
Who start at feathers, from an insect fly,
A match for nothing—but the Deity.
But, not to wrong the fair, the Muse must own
In this pursuit they court not fame alone;
But join to that a more substantial view,
'From thinking free, to be free agents, too.'
They strive with their own hearts, and keep them down,
In complaisance to all the fools in town.
O how they tremble at the name of prude!
And die with shame at thought of being good!
For, what will Artimis, the rich and gay,
What will the wits, that is, the coxcombs, say?
They Heaven defy, to earth's vile dregs a slave;
Through cowardice, most execrably brave.
With our own judgments durst we to comply,
In virtue should we live, in glory die.
Rise then, my Muse, In honest fury rise;
They dread a satire who defy the skies.
Atheists are few: most nymphs a Godhead own;
And nothing but his attributes dethrone.
From atheists far, they steadfastly believe
God is, and is almighty—to forgive,
His other excellence they'll not dispute;
But mercy, sure, is his chief attribute.
Shall pleasures of a short duration chain
A lady's soul in everlasting pain?
Will the great Author us poor worms destroy,
For now and then a sip of transient joy?
No; he's forever in a smiling mood;
He's like themselves; or how could he be good?
And they blaspheme, who blacker schemes suppose.
Devoutly, thus, Jehovah they depose,
The pure! the just! and set up, in his stead,
A deity that's perfectly well bred.
'Dear Tillotson! be sure the best of men;
Nor thought he more than thought great Origen.
Though once upon a time he misbehaved,
Poor Satan! doubtless, he'll at length be saved.
Let priests do something for their one in ten;
It is their trade; so far they're honest men.
Let them cant on, since they have got the knack,
And dress their notions, like themselves, in black;
Fright us, with terrors of a world unknown,
From joys of this, to keep them all their own.
Of earth's fair fruits, indeed, they claim a fee;
But then they leave our untithed virtue free.
Virtue's a pretty thing to make a show:
Did ever mortal write like Rochefoucauld?
Thus pleads the Devil's fair apologist,
And, pleading, safely enters on his list.
