Do not to the Temple go,
With design to gaze or show:
Whate'er Thoughts you have abroad,
Tho' you can deceive elsewhere,
There's no feigning with your God;
Souls should be all perfect there.
The Heart that's to the Altar brought,
Only Heaven should fill its Thought.
Do not your sober Thoughts perplex,
By gazing on the Ogling Sex:
Or if Beauty call your Eyes,
Do not on the Object dwell;
Guard your Heart from the Surprize,
By thinking Iris doth excell.
Above all Earthly Things I'd be, }
Damon, most belov'd by thee; }
And only Heaven must rival me. }
ONE o'CLOCK.
Forc'd Entertainment.
I Perceive it will be very difficult for you to quit the Temple, without being surrounded with Compliments from People of Ceremony, Friends, and Newsmongers, and several of those sorts of Persons, who afflict and busy themselves, and rejoice at a hundred things they have no Interest in; Coquets and Politicians, who make it the Business of their whole Lives, to gather all the News of the Town; adding or diminishing according to the Stock of their Wit and Invention, and spreading it all abroad to the believing Fools and Gossips; and perplexing every body with a hundred ridiculous Novels, which they pass off for Wit and Entertainment; or else some of those Recounters of Adventures, that are always telling of Intrigues, and that make a Secret to a hundred People of a thousand foolish things they have heard: Like a certain pert and impertinent Lady of the Town, whose Youth and Beauty being past, sets up for Wit, to uphold a feeble Empire over idle Hearts; and whose Character is this:
The Coquet.
Melinda, who had never been
Esteem'd a Beauty at fifteen,
Always amorous was, and kind:
To every Swain she lent an Ear;
Free as Air, but false as Wind;
Yet none complain'd, she was severe.
She eas'd more than she made complain;
Was always singing, pert, and vain.
Where-e'er the Throng was, she was seen,
And swept the Youths along the Green;
With equal Grace she flatter'd all;
And fondly proud of all Address,
Her Smiles invite, her Eyes do call,
And her vain Heart her Looks confess.
She rallies this, to that she bow'd,
Was talking ever, laughing loud.
On every side she makes advance,
And every where a Confidence;
She tells for Secrets all she knows,
And all to know she does pretend:
Beauty in Maids she treats as Foes:
But every handsome Youth as Friend.
Scandal still passes off for Truth;
And Noise and Nonsense, Wit and Youth.
Coquet all o'er, and every part,
Yet wanting Beauty, even of Art;
Herds with the ugly, and the old;
And plays the Critick on the rest:
Of Men, the bashful, and the bold,
Either, and all, by turns, likes best:
Even now, tho' Youth be langisht, she
Sets up for Love and Gallantry.