Since Man with that inconstancy was born,
To love the absent, and the present scorn,
Why do we deck, why do we dress
For such a short-liv'd happiness?
Why do we put Attraction on,
Since either way 'tis we must be undon?
They fly if Honour take our part,
Our Virtue drives 'em o're the field.
We lose 'em by too much desert,
And Oh! they fly us if we yeild,
Ye Gods! is there no charm in all the fair
To fix this wild, this faithless, wanderer?
Man! our great business and our aim,
For whom we spread our fruitless snares,
No sooner kindles the designing flame,
But to the next bright object bears
The Trophies of his conquest and our shame:
Inconstancy's the good supream
The rest is airy Notion, empty Dream!
Then, heedless Nymph, be rul'd by me
If e're your Swain the bliss desire;
Think like Alexis he may be
Whose wisht Possession damps his fire;
The roving youth in every shade
Has left some sighing and abandon'd Maid,
For 'tis a fatal lesson he has learn'd,
After fruition ne're to be concern'd.
To Alexis, On his saying, I lov'd a Man that talk'd much, by Mrs. B.
Alexis, since you'll have it so
I grant I am impertinent.
And till this moment did not know
Thrô all my life what 'twas I ment;
Your kind opinion was th' unflattering Glass,
In which my mind found how deform'd it was.
In your clear sense which knows no art,
I saw the error of my Soul;
And all the feebless of my heart,
With one reflection you controul,
Kind as a God, and gently you chastise,
By what you hate, you teach me to be wise.
Impertinence, my sexes shame,
(Which has so long my life persu'd,)
You with such modesty reclaim
As all the Woman has subdu'd,
To so divine a power what must I owe,
That renders me so like the perfect—you?
That conversable thing I hate
Already with a just disdain,
Who Prid's himself upon his prate
And is of word, (that Nonsense,) vain;
When in your few appears such excellence,
They have reproacht, and charm'd me into sense.
For ever may I listning sit,
Thô but each hour a word be born:
I wou'd attend the coming wit,
And bless what can so well inform:
Let the dull World henceforth to words be damn'd,
I'm into nobler sense than talking sham'd.