Tell me, yee fair ones, that exchange desire,
How tis you hid the kindling fire.
Oh! wou'd you but confess the truth,
It is not real virtue makes you nice:
But when you do resist the pressing youth,
'Tis want of dear desire, to thaw the Virgin Ice.
And while your young adorers lye
All languishing and hopeless at your feet,
Raising new Trophies to your chastity,
Oh tell me, how you do remain discreet?
How you suppress the rising sighs,
And the soft yeilding soul that wishes in your Eyes?
While to th'admiring crow'd you nice are found;
Some dear, some secret, youth that gives the wound
Informs you, all your virtu's but a cheat
And Honour but a false disguise,
Your modesty a necessary bait
To gain the dull repute of being wise.
Deceive the foolish World—deceive it on,
And veil your passions in your pride;
But now I've found your feebles by my own,
From me the needful fraud you cannot hide.
Thô tis a mighty power must move
The soul to this degree of love,
And thô with virtue I the World perplex,
Lysander finds the weakness of my sex,
So Helen while from Theseus arms she fled,
To charming Paris yeilds her heart and Bed.
To Amintas. Upon reading the Lives of some of the Romans.
by Mrs. B.
Had'st thou, Amintas; liv'd in that great age,
When hardly Beauty was to nature known,
What numbers to thy side might'st thou engage
And conquer'd Kingdoms by thy looks alone?
That age when valor they did Beauty name,
When Men did justly our brave sex prefer,
'Cause they durst dye, and scorn the publick shame
Of adding Glory to the conqueror.
Had mighty Scipio had thy charming face,
Great Sophonisbe had refus'd to dye,
Her passion o're the sense of her disgrace
Had gain'd the more obliging victory.
Nor less wou'd Massanissa too have done
But to such Eyes, as to his Sword wou'd bow,
For neither sex can here thy fetters shun,
Being all Scipio, and Amintas too.
Had'st thou great Cæsar been, the greater Queen,
Wou'd trembling have her mortal Asps lay'd by,
In thee she had not only Cæsar seen,
But all she did adore in Antony.
Had daring Sextus had thy lovely shape,
The fairest Woman living had not dy'd
But blest the darkness that secur'd the Rape,
Suffering her Pleasure to have debauch't her Pride.