Thus taste the feast by Nature spread,
  Ere youth and all its joys are fled;
  Come, taste with me the balm of life,
  Secure from pomp, and wealth, and strife! 
  I boast whate’er for man was meant,
  In health, in Stella, and content;
  And scorn, oh! let that scorn be thine,
  Mere things of clay, that dig the mine!

* * * * *

  TO A YOUNG LADY,

  ON HER BIRTHDAY.

  This tributary verse receive, my fair,
  Warm with an ardent lover’s fondest prayer. 
  May this returning day for ever find
  Thy form more lovely, more adorn’d thy mind;
  All pains, all cares, may favouring Heaven remove,
  All but the sweet solicitudes of love! 
  May powerful Nature join with grateful Art,
  To point each glance, and force it to the heart! 
  Oh then, when conquer’d crowds confess thy sway,
  When even proud Wealth and prouder Wit obey, 10
  My fair, be mindful of the mighty trust,
  Alas! ’tis hard for beauty to be just! 
  Those sovereign charms with strictest care employ;
  Nor give the generous pain, the worthless joy: 
  With his own form acquaint the forward fool,
  Shown in the faithful glass of Ridicule;
  Teach mimic Censure her own faults to find,
  No more let coquettes to themselves be blind,
  So shall Belinda’s charms improve mankind.

* * * * *

EPILOGUE

INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN SPOKEN BY A LADY WHO WAS TO PERSONATE ’THE GHOST OF HERMIONE.’

  Ye blooming train, who give despair or joy,
  Bless with a smile, or with a frown destroy;
  In whose fair cheeks destructive Cupids wait,
  And with unerring shafts distribute fate;
  Whose snowy breasts, whose animated eyes,
  Each youth admires, though each admirer dies;
  Whilst you deride their pangs in barbarous play,
  Unpitying see them weep, and hear them pray,
  And unrelenting sport ten thousand lives away: 
  For you, ye fair!  I quit the gloomy plains, 10
  Where sable Night in all her horror reigns;
  No fragrant bowers, no delightful glades,
  Receive the unhappy ghosts of scornful maids. 
  For kind, for tender nymphs, the myrtle blooms,
  And weaves her bending boughs in pleasing glooms;
  Perennial roses deck each purple vale,
  And scents ambrosial breathe in every gale;
  Far hence are banish’d vapours, spleen, and tears,
  Tea, scandal, ivory teeth, and languid airs;
  No pug, nor favourite Cupid there enjoys 20
  The balmy kiss for which poor Thyrsis dies;
  Form’d to delight, they use no foreign arms,
  No torturing whalebones pinch them into charms;
  No conscious blushes there their cheeks inflame,
  For those who feel no guilt can know no shame;
  Unfaded still their former charms they