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SYLVIA[1],
A FRAGMENT.
SYLVIA my heart in wondrous wise alarm'd,
Aw'd without sense, and without beauty charm'd:
But some odd graces and some flights she had,
Was just not ugly, and was just not mad:
Her tongue still ran on credit from her eyes,
More pert than witty, more a wit than wise:
Goodnature, she declar'd it, was her scorn,
Tho' 'twas by that alone she could be born:
Affronting all, yet fond of a good name;
A fool to pleasure, yet a slave to fame:
Now coy, and studious in no point to fall,
Now all agog for D——y at a ball:
Now deep in Taylor, and the Book of Martyrs,
Now drinking citron with his grace and Chartres.
Men, some to business, some to pleasure take;
But ev'ry woman's in her soul a rake.
Frail, fev'rish sex! their fit now chills, now burns:
Atheism and superstition rule by turns;
And the mere heathen in her carnal part
Is still a sad good Christian in her heart.
- ↑ Printed in the Characters of Women.
