Nor whisper to the tattling reeds
The blackest of all female deeds;
Nor blab it on the lonely rocks,
Where Echo sits, and listening mocks;
Nor let the Zephyr’s treacherous gale
Through Cambridge waft the direful tale;
Nor to the chattering feather’d race
Discover Celia’s foul disgrace. 
But, if you fail, my spectre dread,
Attending nightly round your bed—­
And yet I dare confide in you;
So take my secret, and adieu: 
Nor wonder how I lost my wits: 
Oh!  Celia, Celia, Celia sh—!

[Footnote 1:  From “Macbeth,” in Act III, Sc. iv: 
  “Thou canst not say, I did it:”  etc. 
  “Avaunt, and quit my sight.”]

A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG NYMPH GOING TO BED.

WRITTEN FOR THE HONOUR OF THE FAIR SEX. 1731

Corinna, pride of Drury-Lane,
For whom no shepherd sighs in vain;
Never did Covent-Garden boast
So bright a batter’d strolling toast! 
No drunken rake to pick her up,
No cellar where on tick to sup;
Returning at the midnight hour,
Four stories climbing to her bower;
Then, seated on a three-legg’d chair,
Takes off her artificial hair;
Now picking out a crystal eye,
She wipes it clean, and lays it by. 
Her eyebrows from a mouse’s hide
Stuck on with art on either side,
Pulls off with care, and first displays ’em,
Then in a play-book smoothly lays ’em. 
Now dext’rously her plumpers draws,
That serve to fill her hollow jaws,
Untwists a wire, and from her gums
A set of teeth completely comes;
Pulls out the rags contrived to prop
Her flabby dugs, and down they drop. 
Proceeding on, the lovely goddess
Unlaces next her steel-ribb’d bodice,
Which, by the operator’s skill,
Press down the lumps, the hollows fill. 
Up goes her hand, and off she slips
The bolsters that supply her hips;
With gentlest touch she next explores
Her chancres, issues, running sores;
Effects of many a sad disaster,
And then to each applies a plaster: 
But must, before she goes to bed,
Rub off the daubs of white and red,
And smooth the furrows in her front
With greasy paper stuck upon’t. 
She takes a bolus ere she sleeps;
And then between two blankets creeps. 
With pains of love tormented lies;
Or, if she chance to close her eyes,
Of Bridewell[1] and the Compter[1] dreams,
And feels the lash, and faintly screams;
Or, by a faithless bully drawn,
At some hedge-tavern lies in pawn;
Or to Jamaica[2] seems transported
Alone, and by no planter courted;
Or, near Fleet-ditch’s[3] oozy brinks,
Surrounded with a hundred stinks,
Belated, seems on watch to lie,
And snap some cully passing by;
Or, struck with fear, her fancy runs
On watchmen, constables, and duns,
From whom she meets with frequent rubs;
But never from religious clubs;
Whose favour she is sure to find,