X

Thus the deluding Muse oft blinds me to her ways,
  And ev’n my very thoughts transfers
  And changes all to beauty and the praise
    Of that proud tyrant sex of hers. 
    The rebel Muse, alas! takes part,
    But with my own rebellious heart,
And you with fatal and immortal wit conspire
      To fan th’unhappy fire. 
    Cruel unknown! what is it you intend? 
Ah! could you, could you hope a poet for your friend! 
  Rather forgive what my first transport said: 
May all the blood, which shall by woman’s scorn be shed,
  Lie upon you and on your children’s head! 
For you (ah! did I think I e’er should live to see
  The fatal time when that could be!)
  Have even increased their pride and cruelty. 
  Woman seems now above all vanity grown,
  Still boasting of her great unknown
Platonic champions, gain’d without one female wile,
    Or the vast charges of a smile;
  Which ’tis a shame to see how much of late
  You’ve taught the covetous wretches to o’errate,
And which they’ve now the consciences to weigh
    In the same balance with our tears,
  And with such scanty wages pay
  The bondage and the slavery of years. 
Let the vain sex dream on; the empire comes from us;
      And had they common generosity,
        They would not use us thus. 
    Well—­though you’ve raised her to this high degree,
    Ourselves are raised as well as she;
  And, spite of all that they or you can do,
’Tis pride and happiness enough to me,
Still to be of the same exalted sex with you.

XI

    Alas, how fleeting and how vain
Is even the nobler man, our learning and our wit! 
        I sigh whene’er I think of it: 
      As at the closing an unhappy scene
      Of some great king and conqueror’s death,
    When the sad melancholy Muse
Stays but to catch his utmost breath. 
I grieve, this nobler work, most happily begun,
So quickly and so wonderfully carried on,
May fall at last to interest, folly, and abuse. 
      There is a noontide in our lives,
      Which still the sooner it arrives,
Although we boast our winter sun looks bright,
And foolishly are glad to see it at its height,
Yet so much sooner comes the long and gloomy night. 
    No conquest ever yet begun,
And by one mighty hero carried to its height,
E’er flourished under a successor or a son;
It lost some mighty pieces through all hands it pass’d,
And vanish’d to an empty title in the last. 
  For, when the animating mind is fled,
    (Which nature never can retain,
      Nor e’er call back again,)
The body, though gigantic, lies all cold and dead.

XII