The black, which would not be confined,
  A more inferior station seeks,
Leaving the fiery red behind,
  And mingles in her muddy cheeks.

The paint by perspiration cracks,
  And falls in rivulets of sweat,
On either side you see the tracks
  While at her chin the conflu’nts meet.

A skilful housewife thus her thumb,
  With spittle while she spins anoints;
And thus the brown meanders come
  In trickling streams betwixt her joints.

But Celia can with ease reduce,
  By help of pencil, paint, and brush,
Each colour to its place and use,
  And teach her cheeks again to blush.

She knows her early self no more,
  But fill’d with admiration stands;
As other painters oft adore
  The workmanship of their own hands.

Thus, after four important hours,
  Celia’s the wonder of her sex;
Say, which among the heavenly powers
  Could cause such wonderful effects?

Venus, indulgent to her kind,
  Gave women all their hearts could wish,
When first she taught them where to find
  White lead, and Lusitanian dish.

Love with white lead cements his wings;
  White lead was sent us to repair
Two brightest, brittlest, earthly things,
  A lady’s face, and China-ware.

She ventures now to lift the sash;
  The window is her proper sphere;
Ah, lovely nymph! be not too rash,
  Nor let the beaux approach too near.

Take pattern by your sister star;
  Delude at once and bless our sight;
When you are seen, be seen from far,
  And chiefly choose to shine by night.

In the Pall Mall when passing by,
  Keep up the glasses of your chair,
Then each transported fop will cry,
  “G——­d d——­n me, Jack, she’s wondrous fair!”

But art no longer can prevail,
  When the materials all are gone;
The best mechanic hand must fail,
  Where nothing’s left to work upon.

Matter, as wise logicians say,
  Cannot without a form subsist;
And form, say I, as well as they,
  Must fail if matter brings no grist.

And this is fair Diana’s case;
  For, all astrologers maintain,
Each night a bit drops off her face,
  When mortals say she’s in her wane: 

While Partridge wisely shows the cause
  Efficient of the moon’s decay,
That Cancer with his pois’nous claws
  Attacks her in the milky way: 

But Gadbury,[2] in art profound,
  From her pale cheeks pretends to show
That swain Endymion is not sound,
  Or else that Mercury’s her foe.

But let the cause be what it will,
  In half a month she looks so thin,
That Flamsteed[3] can, with all his skill,
  See but her forehead and her chin.

Yet, as she wastes, she grows discreet,
  Till midnight never shows her head;
So rotting Celia strolls the street,
  When sober folks are all a-bed: