Why, how now, Doll Diamond, you’re very alert;
Is it your French breeding has made you so pert? 
Because I was civil, here’s a stir with a pox: 
Who is it that values your ——­ or your fox? 
Sure ’tis to her honour, he ever should bed
His bloody red hand to her bloody red head. 
You’re proud of your gilding; but I tell you each nail
Is only just tinged with a rub at her tail;
And although it may pass for gold on a ninny,
Sure we know a Bath shilling soon from a guinea. 
Nay, her foretop’s a cheat; each morn she does black it,
Yet, ere it be night, it’s the same with her placket. 
I’ll ne’er be run down any more with your cant;
Your velvet was wore before in a mant,
On the back of her mother; but now ’tis much duller,—­
The fire she carries hath changed its colour. 
Those creatures that draw me you never would mind,
If you’d but look on your own Pharaoh’s lean kine;
They’re taken for spectres, they’re so meagre and spare,
Drawn damnably low by your sorrel mare. 
We know how your lady was on you befriended;
You’re not to be paid for ’till the lawsuit is ended: 
But her bond it is good, he need not to doubt;
She is two or three years above being out. 
Could my Knight be advised, he should ne’er spend his vigour
On one he can’t hope of e’er making bigger.

[Footnote 1:  Mrs. Dorothy Stopford, afterwards Countess of Meath, of whom Swift says, in his Journal to Stella, Feb. 23, 1711-12, “Countess Doll of Meath is such an owl, that, wherever I visit, people are asking me, whether I know such an Irish lady, and her figure and her foppery.”  See, post, the Poem entitled, “Dicky and Dolly.”—­W.  E. B.]

TO LORD HARLEY, ON HIS MARRIAGE[1] OCTOBER 31, 1713

Among the numbers who employ
Their tongues and pens to give you joy,
Dear Harley! generous youth, admit
What friendship dictates more than wit. 
Forgive me, when I fondly thought
(By frequent observations taught)
A spirit so inform’d as yours
Could never prosper in amours. 
The God of Wit, and Light, and Arts,
With all acquired and natural parts,
Whose harp could savage beasts enchant,
Was an unfortunate gallant. 
Had Bacchus after Daphne reel’d,
The nymph had soon been brought to yield;
Or, had embroider’d Mars pursued,
The nymph would ne’er have been a prude. 
Ten thousand footsteps, full in view,
Mark out the way where Daphne[2] flew;
For such is all the sex’s flight,
They fly from learning, wit, and light;
They fly, and none can overtake
But some gay coxcomb, or a rake. 
  How then, dear Harley, could I guess
That you should meet, in love, success? 
For, if those ancient tales be true,
Phoebus was beautiful as you;
Yet Daphne never slack’d her pace,
For wit and learning spoil’d his face. 
And since the same resemblance held