Pleasures the sex, as children birds, pursue,
Still out of reach, yet never out of view;
Sure, if they catch, to spoil the toy at most,
To covet flying, and regret when lost: 
At last, to follies youth could scarce defend,
It grows their age’s prudence to pretend;
Ashamed to own they gave delight before,
Reduced to feign it, when they give no more: 
As hags hold Sabbaths, less for joy than spite,
So these their merry, miserable night;
Still round and round the ghosts of beauty glide,
And haunt the places where their honour died. 
See how the world its veterans rewards! 
A youth of frolics, an old age of cards;
Fair to no purpose, artful to no end,
Young without lovers, old without a friend;
A fop their passion, but their prize a sot;
Alive, ridiculous, and dead, forgot! 
Ah!  Friend! to dazzle let the vain design;
To raise the thought and touch the heart be thine! 
That charm shall grow, while what fatigues the Ring
Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing: 
So when the sun’s broad beam has tired the sight,
All mild ascends the moon’s more sober light,
Serene in virgin modesty she shines,
And unobserved the glaring orb declines. 
Oh! blest with temper whose unclouded ray
Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day;
She, who can love a sister’s charms, or hear
Sighs for a daughter with unwounded ear;
She, who ne’er answers till a husband cools,
Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules;
Charms by accepting, by submitting, sways,
Yet has her humour most, when she obeys;
Let fops or fortune fly which way they will;
Disdains all loss of tickets, or codille;
Spleen, vapours, or small-pox, above them all,
And mistress of herself, though china fall. 
And yet, believe me, good as well as ill,
Woman’s at best a contradiction still. 
Heaven, when it strives to polish all it can
Its last best work, but forms a softer man;
Picks from each sex, to make the favourite blest,
Your love of pleasure, our desire of rest: 
Blends, in exception to all general rules,
Your taste of follies, with our scorn of fools: 
Reserve with frankness, art with truth allied,
Courage with softness, modesty with pride;
Fixed principles, with fancy ever new;
Shakes all together, and produces—­You.

  FROM EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT

P.  Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigued, I said; Tie up the knocker, say I’m sick, I’m dead.  The Dog-star rages! nay, ’tis past a doubt, All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:  Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, They rave, recite, and madden round the land.  What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide?  They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide; By land, by water, they renew the charge; They stop the chariot, and they board the barge.  No place is sacred, not the church is free; E’en Sunday shines