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36
THE TRIUMPHS


And thinks the fashionable silk must prove
Her robe of triumph, and a spell to love!
To thee, sweet maid, whose pleasure-darting eyes
Joy in this favourite vest, an hour shall rise,
When thou shalt hate the silk so fondly sought,
And wish thy silver-spotted gauze unbought[1]:
For busy Spleen thy trial now prepares;
Darkly she forms her unsuspected snares,
And, keen to raise her pleasure-killing storm,
Assumes Penelope's congenial form.
In that prim shape which all the Graces shun,
See the sour fiend to good Sir Gilbert run!
Where deeply pondering the public debt,
Silent he muses o'er a new gazette!
Ent'ring, she view'd, with eyes of envious spite,
The card, that spoke the masque-devoted night:

  1. Nescia mens hominum fati fortisque futuræ,
    Et servare modum, rebus sublata secundis.
    Turno tempus erit, magno cum optaverit emptum
    Intactum Pallanta, et cum spolia ista diemque
    Æneid x, v. 501. & seq.Oderit.