Now brown and burnish’d like a nut,
At other times a very slut;
Often fair, and soft, and tender,
Taper, tall, and smooth, and slender: 
Like Flora, deck’d with various flowers,
Like Phoebus, guardian of the hours: 
But whatever be my dress,
Greater be my size or less,
Swelling be my shape or small,
Like thyself I shine in all. 
Clouded if my face is seen,
My complexion wan and green,
Languid like a love-sick maid,
Steel affords me present aid. 
Soon or late, my date is done,
As my thread of life is spun;
Yet to cut the fatal thread
Oft revives my drooping head;
Yet I perish in my prime,
Seldom by the death of time;
Die like lovers as they gaze,
Die for those I live to please;
Pine unpitied to my urn,
Nor warm the fair for whom I burn: 
Unpitied, unlamented too,
Die like all that look on you.

TO LADY CARTERET

BY DR. DELANY

I reach all things near me, and far off to boot,
Without stretching a finger, or stirring a foot;
I take them all in too, to add to your wonder,
Though many and various, and large and asunder,
Without jostling or crowding they pass side by side,
Through a wonderful wicket, not half an inch wide;
Then I lodge them at ease in a very large store,
Of no breadth or length, with a thousand things more. 
All this I can do without witchcraft or charm,
Though sometimes they say, I bewitch and do harm;
Though cold, I inflame; and though quiet, invade: 
And nothing can shield from my spell but a shade. 
A thief that has robb’d you, or done you disgrace,
In magical mirror, I’ll show you his face: 
Nay, if you’ll believe what the poets have said,
They’ll tell you I kill, and can call back the dead. 
Like conjurers safe in my circle I dwell;
I love to look black too, it heightens my spell;
Though my magic is mighty in every hue,
Who see all my power must see it in you.

ANSWERED BY DR. SWIFT

WITH half an eye your riddle I spy,
I observe your wicket hemm’d in by a thicket,
And whatever passes is strain’d through glasses. 
You say it is quiet:  I flatly deny it. 
It wanders about, without stirring out;
No passion so weak but gives it a tweak;
Love, joy, and devotion, set it always in motion. 
And as for trie tragic effects of its magic,
Which you say it can kill, or revive at its will,
The dead are all sound, and they live above ground: 
After all you have writ, it cannot be wit;
Which plainly does follow, since it flies from Apollo. 
Its cowardice such it cries at a touch;
’Tis a perfect milksop, grows drunk with a drop,
Another great fault, it cannot bear salt: 
And a hair can disarm it of every charm.

TO LADY CARTERET