What powder’d wigs! what flames and darts! 
What hampers full of bleeding hearts! 
What sword-knots! what poetic strains! 
What billets-doux, and clouded canes! 
  But Strephon sigh’d so loud and strong,
He blew a settlement along;
And bravely drove his rivals down,
With coach and six, and house in town. 
The bashful nymph no more withstands,
Because her dear papa commands. 
The charming couple now unites: 
Proceed we to the marriage rites.
  Imprimis, at the Temple porch
Stood Hymen with a flaming torch: 
The smiling Cyprian Goddess brings
Her infant loves with purple wings: 
And pigeons billing, sparrows treading,
Fair emblems of a fruitful wedding. 
The Muses next in order follow,
Conducted by their squire, Apollo: 
Then Mercury with silver tongue;
And Hebe, goddess ever young. 
Behold, the bridegroom and his bride
Walk hand in hand, and side by side;
She, by the tender Graces drest,
But he, by Mars, in scarlet vest. 
The nymph was cover’d with her flammeum[3],
And Phoebus sung th’epithalamium[4]. 
And last, to make the matter sure,
Dame Juno brought a priest demure.
[5]Luna was absent, on pretence
Her time was not till nine months hence. 
The rites perform’d, the parson paid,
In state return’d the grand parade;
With loud huzzas from all the boys,
That now the pair must crown their joys. 
  But still the hardest part remains: 
Strephon had long perplex’d his brains,
How with so high a nymph he might
Demean himself the wedding-night: 
For, as he view’d his person round,
Mere mortal flesh was all he found: 
His hand, his neck, his mouth, and feet,
Were duly wash’d, to keep them sweet;
With other parts, that shall be nameless,
The ladies else might think me shameless. 
The weather and his love were hot;
And, should he struggle, I know what—­
Why, let it go, if I must tell it—­
He’ll sweat, and then the nymph may smell it;
While she, a goddess dyed in grain,
Was unsusceptible of stain,
And, Venus-like, her fragrant skin
Exhaled ambrosia from within. 
Can such a deity endure
A mortal human touch impure? 
How did the humbled swain detest
His prickly beard, and hairy breast! 
His night-cap, border’d round with lace,
Could give no softness to his face. 
  Yet, if the goddess could be kind,
What endless raptures must he find! 
And goddesses have now and then
Come down to visit mortal men;
To visit and to court them too: 
A certain goddess, God knows who,
(As in a book he heard it read,)
Took Col’nel Peleus[6] to her bed. 
But what if he should lose his life
By vent’ring on his heavenly wife! 
(For Strephon could remember well,
That once he heard a school-boy tell,
How Semele,[7] of mortal race,
By thunder died in Jove’s embrace.)
And what if daring Strephon dies