The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 2 | Page 5

held Montaigne, and read,
While
Mrs. Susan comb'd her head.
They call'd for tea and chocolate,
And
fell into their usual chat,
Discoursing with important face,
On
ribbons, fans, and gloves, and lace;
Show'd patterns just from India
brought,

And gravely ask'd her what she thought,
Whether the red
or green were best,
And what they cost? Vanessa guess'd
As came
into her fancy first;
Named half the rates, and liked the worst.
To
scandal next--What awkward thing
Was that last Sunday in the ring?

I'm sorry Mopsa breaks so fast:
I said her face would never last.

Corinna, with that youthful air,
Is thirty, and a bit to spare:
Her
fondness for a certain earl
Began when I was but a girl!
Phillis, who
but a month ago
Was married to the Tunbridge beau,
I saw
coquetting t'other night
In public with that odious knight!
They
rallied next Vanessa's dress:
That gown was made for old Queen Bess.

Dear madam, let me see your head:
Don't you intend to put on red?


A petticoat without a hoop!
Sure, you are not ashamed to stoop!

With handsome garters at your knees,
No matter what a fellow sees.

Filled with disdain, with rage inflamed
Both of herself and sex
ashamed,
The nymph stood silent out of spite,
Nor would vouchsafe
to set them right.
Away the fair detractors went,
And gave by turns
their censures vent.
She's not so handsome in my eyes:
For wit, I
wonder where it lies!
She's fair and clean, and that's the most:
But
why proclaim her for a toast?
A baby face; no life, no airs,
But what
she learn'd at country fairs;
Scarce knows what difference is between

Rich Flanders lace and Colberteen. [2]
I'll undertake, my little
Nancy
In flounces has a better fancy;
With all her wit, I would not
ask
Her judgment how to buy a mask.
We begg'd her but to patch
her face,
She never hit one proper place;
Which every girl at five
years old
Can do as soon as she is told.
I own, that out-of-fashion
stuff
Becomes the creature well enough.
The girl might pass, if we
could get her
To know the world a little better.
(To know the world!
a modern phrase
For visits, ombre, balls, and plays.)
Thus, to the
world's perpetual shame,
The Queen of Beauty lost her aim;
Too
late with grief she understood
Pallas had done more harm than good;

For great examples are but vain,
Where ignorance begets disdain.

Both sexes, arm'd with guilt and spite,
Against Vanessa's power
unite:
To copy her few nymphs aspired;
Her virtues fewer swains
admired.

So stars, beyond a certain height,
Give mortals neither
heat nor light.
Yet some of either sex, endow'd
With gifts superior
to the crowd,
With virtue, knowledge, taste, and wit
She
condescended to admit:
With pleasing arts she could reduce
Men's
talents to their proper use;
And with address each genius held
To
that wherein it most excell'd;
Thus, making others' wisdom known,

Could please them, and improve her own.
A modest youth said
something new;
She placed it in the strongest view.
All humble
worth she strove to raise,
Would not be praised, yet loved to praise.

The learned met with free approach,
Although they came not in a
coach:
Some clergy too she would allow,
Nor quarrell'd at their

awkward bow;
But this was for Cadenus' sake,
A gownman of a
different make;
Whom Pallas once, Vanessa's tutor,
Had fix'd on for
her coadjutor.
But Cupid, full of mischief, longs
To vindicate his
mother's wrongs.
On Pallas all attempts are vain:
One way he
knows to give her pain;
Vows on Vanessa's heart to take
Due
vengeance, for her patron's sake;
Those early seeds by Venus sown,

In spite of Pallas now were grown;
And Cupid hoped they would
improve
By time, and ripen into love.
The boy made use of all his
craft,
In vain discharging many a shaft,
Pointed at colonels, lords,
and beaux:
Cadenus warded off the blows;
For, placing still some
book betwixt,
The darts were in the cover fix'd,
Or, often blunted
and recoil'd,
On Plutarch's Moral struck, were spoil'd.
The Queen of
Wisdom could foresee,
But not prevent, the Fates' decree:
And
human caution tries in vain
To break that adamantine chain.

Vanessa, though by Pallas taught,
By Love invulnerable thought,

Searching in books for wisdom's aid,
Was, in the very search,
betray'd.
Cupid, though all his darts were lost,
Yet still resolved to
spare no cost:
He could not answer to his fame
The triumphs of that
stubborn dame,
A nymph so hard to be subdued,
Who neither was
coquette nor prude.
I find, said he, she wants a doctor,
Both to
adore her, and instruct her:
I'll give her what she most admires

Among those venerable sires.
Cadenus is a subject fit,

Grown old in
politics and wit,
Caress'd by ministers of state,
Of half mankind the
dread and hate.
Whate'er vexations love attend,
She needs no rivals
apprehend.
Her sex, with universal voice,
Must laugh at her
capricious choice.
Cadenus many things had writ:
Vanessa much
esteem'd his wit,
And call'd for his poetic works:
Meantime the boy
in secret lurks;
And, while the book was in her hand,
The urchin
from his private stand
Took aim, and shot with all his strength
A
dart of such prodigious length,
It pierced the feeble volume through,

And deep transfix'd her bosom too.
Some lines, more moving than
the rest,
Stuck to the point that pierced her breast,
And, borne
directly to the heart,
With pains unknown increased her smart.


Vanessa, not in years a score,
Dreams of a gown of forty-four;

Imaginary charms