A book of women's verse

by Unknown

Nothing but weeds and moss, and shrubs are found:

Cut, cut them down, why cumber they the ground?

And yet you’d have me write? For what? for whom?

To curl a favourite in a dressing room?

To mend a candle when the snuff’s too short?

Or save rappee for chamber-maids at court?

Glorious ambition! noble thirst of fame!

No, but you’d have me write—to get a name.

Alas! I’d live unknown, unenvy’d too;

’Tis more than Pope with all his wit can do;