She saw her favour was misplaced;
The fellows had a wretched taste;
She needs must tell them to their face,
They were a stupid, senseless race;
And, were she to begin again,
She’d study to reform the men;
Or add some grains of folly more
To women, than they had before,
To put them on an equal foot;
And this, or nothing else, would do’t. 
This might their mutual fancy strike;
Since every being loves its like. 
  “But now, repenting what was done,
She left all business to her son;
She put the world in his possession,
And let him use it at discretion.” 
  The crier was order’d to dismiss
The court, who made his last “O yes!”
The goddess would no longer wait;
But, rising from her chair of state,
Left all below at six and seven,
Harness’d her doves, and flew to Heaven.

[Footnote 1:  Hester, elder daughter of Bartholomew Vanhomrigh, a Dutch merchant in Dublin, where he acquired a fortune of some L16,000.  Upon his death, his widow and two daughters settled in London, about 1710-11, where Swift became intimate with the family.  See “Prose Works,” especially Journal to Stella.  After Swift became Dean of St. Patrick’s, Vanessa and her sister, on their mother’s death, returned to Ireland.  The younger sister died about 1720, and Vanessa died at Marlay Abbey in May, 1723.]

[Footnote 2:  A lace so called after the celebrated French Minister, Colbert.  Planche’s “British Costume,” 395._W.  E. B._]

[Footnote 3:  See the verses “On Censure,” vol. i, p.160.—­W.  E. B.]

TO LOVE[1]

In all I wish, how happy should I be,
Thou grand Deluder, were it not for thee! 
So weak thou art, that fools thy power despise;
And yet so strong, thou triumph’st o’er the wise. 
Thy traps are laid with such peculiar art,
They catch the cautious, let the rash depart. 
Most nets are fill’d by want of thought and care
But too much thinking brings us to thy snare;
Where, held by thee, in slavery we stay,
And throw the pleasing part of life away. 
But, what does most my indignation move,
Discretion! thou wert ne’er a friend to Love: 
Thy chief delight is to defeat those arts,
By which he kindles mutual flames in hearts;
While the blind loitering God is at his play,
Thou steal’st his golden pointed darts away: 
Those darts which never fail; and in their stead
Convey’st malignant arrows tipt with lead: 
The heedless God, suspecting no deceits,
Shoots on, and thinks he has done wondrous feats;
But the poor nymph, who feels her vitals burn,
And from her shepherd can find no return,
Laments, and rages at the power divine,
When, curst Discretion! all the fault was thine: 
Cupid and Hymen thou hast set at odds,
And bred such feuds between those kindred gods,
That Venus cannot reconcile her sons;
When one appears, away the other runs. 
The former scales, wherein he used to poise
Love against love, and equal joys with joys,
Are now fill’d up with avarice and pride,
Where titles, power, and riches, still subside. 
Then, gentle Venus, to thy father run,
And tell him, how thy children are undone: 
Prepare his bolts to give one fatal blow,
And strike Discretion to the shades below.