Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/136

Full on the fair his beams Apollo flung,
And fond persuasion tipp'd her easy tongue;
He gave her words, where oily flattery lays
The pleasing colours of the art of praise;
And wit, to scandal exquisitely prone,
Which frets another's spleen to cure its own.

Those sacred Virgins whom the bards revere,
Tun'd all her voice, and shed a sweetness there,
To make her sense with double charms abound,
Or make her lively nonsense please by sound.

To dress the maid, the decent Graces brought
A robe in all the dyes of beauty wrought,
And plac'd their boxes o'er a rich brocade
Where pictur'd loves on every cover play'd;
Then spread those implements that Vulcan's art
Had fram'd to merit Cytherea's heart;
The wire to curl, the close-indented comb
To call the locks, that lightly wander, home;
And chief, the mirror, where the ravish'd maid
Beholds and loves her own reflected shade.

Fair Flora lent her stores, the purpled Hours
Confin'd her tresses with a wreath of flowers;
Within the wreath arose a radiant crown;
A veil pellucid hung depending down;
Back roll'd her azure veil with serpent fold,
The purfled border deck'd the floor with gold.