Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide:
If to her share some female errors fall,
Look on her face, and you’ll forget ’em all.
This nymph, to the destruction of mankind,
Nourish’d two locks, which graceful hung behind
In equal curls, and well conspir’d to deck
With shining ringlets the smooth iv’ry neck.’
The following is the introduction to the account of Belinda’s assault upon the baron bold, who had dissevered one of these locks ‘from her fair head for ever and for ever.’
‘Now meet thy fate, incens’d Belinda cry’d,
And drew a deadly bodkin from her side.