Bred to disguise, in public 'tis you hide;There, none distinguish 'twixt your shame or pride, Weakness or delicacy; all so nice, That each may seem a virtue or a vice.
In men, we various ruling passions find;
In women, two almost divide the kind:
Those, only fixed they first or last obey--The love of pleasure, and the love of sway.
That, Nature gives; and where the lesson taught Is but to please, can pleasure seem a fault?
Experience, this; by man's oppression curst, They seek the second not to lose the first.
Men, some to business, some to pleasure take;But every woman is at heart a rake:
Men, some to quiet, some to public strife;But every lady would be queen for life.
Yet mark the fate of a whole sex of queens!
Power all their end, but beauty all the means:
In youth they conquer, with so wild a rage, As leaves them scarce a subject in their age:
For foreign glory, foreign joy, they roam;No thought of peace or happiness at home.
But wisdom's triumph is well-timed retreat, As hard a science to the fair as great!
Beauties, like tyrants, old and friendless grown, Yet hate repose, and dread to be alone, Worn out in public, weary every eye, Nor leave one sigh behind them when they die.
Pleasures the sex, as children birds, pursue, Still out of reach, yet never out of view;Sure, if they catch, to spoil the toy at most, To covet flying, and regret when lost:
At last, to follies youth could scarce defend, It grows their age's prudence to pretend;Ashamed to own they gave delight before, Reduced to feign it, when they give no more:
As hags hold Sabbaths, less for joy than spite, So these their merry, miserable night;Still round and round the ghosts of beauty glide, And haunt the places where their honour died.
See how the world its veterans rewards!
A youth of frolics, an old age of cards;
Fair to no purpose, artful to no end;
Young without lovers, old without a friend;A fop their passion, but their prize a sot;Alive, ridiculous; and dead, forgot!
Ah! friend! to dazzle let the vain design;To raise the thought and touch the heart be thine!
That charm shall grow, while what fatigues the ring, Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing:
So when the sun's broad beam has tired the sight, All mild ascends the moon's more sober light;Serene in virgin modesty she shines, And unobserved the glaring orb declines.
Oh! blest with temper whose unclouded ray Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day, She, who can love a sister's charms, or hear Sighs for a daughter with unwounded ear;She, who ne'er answers till a husband cools, Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules;Charms by accepting, by submitting sways, Yet has her humour most, when she obeys;Let fops or fortune fly which way they will;Disdains all loss of tickets, or Codille:
Spleen, vapours, or small-pox, above them all, And mistress of herself, though China fall.
And yet, believe me, good as well as ill, Woman's at best a contradiction still.
Heaven, when it strives to polish all it can Its last best work, but forms a softer man;Picks from each sex, to make the fav'rite blest, Your love of pleasure, or desire of rest:
Blends, in exception to all general rules, Your taste of follies, with our scorn of fools:
Reserve with frankness, art with truth allied, Courage with softness, modesty with pride;Fixed principles, with fancy ever new;
Shakes all together, and produces--You.
Be this a woman's fame: with this unblest, Toasts live a scorn, and queens may die a jest.
This Phoebus promised (I forget the year)When those blue eyes first opened on the sphere;Ascendant Phoebus watched that hour with care, Averted half your parents' simple prayer, And gave you beauty, but denied the pelf That buys your sex a tyrant o'er itself.
The gen'rous god, who wit and gold refines, And ripens spirits as he ripens mines, Kept dross for duchesses--the world shall know it--To you gave sense, good-humour, and a poet.
EPISTLE III.
TO ALLEN LORD BATHURST.
ARGUMENT.
OF THE USE OF RICHES.
That it is known to few, most falling into one of the extremes, Avarice or Profusion, v.1, etc. The point discussed, whether the invention of money has been more commodious or pernicious to Mankind, v.21 to 77. That Riches, either to the Avaricious or the Prodigal, cannot afford Happiness, scarcely Necessaries, v.89-160. That Avarice is an absolute Frenzy, without an end or purpose, v.113, etc., 152. Conjectures about the motives of Avaricious men, v.121 to 153. That the conduct of men, with respect to Riches, can only be accounted for by the Order of Providence, which works the general good out of extremes, and brings all to its great End by perpetual Revolutions, v.161 to 178. How a Miser acts upon Principles which appear to him reasonable, v.179. How a Prodigal does the same, v.199. The due Medium and true use of Riches, v.219. The Man of Ross, v.250. The fate of the Profuse and the Covetous, in two examples; both miserable in Life and in Death, v.300, etc. The Story of Sir Balaam, v.339to the end.
P. Who shall decide, when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?
You hold the word, from Jove to Momus given, That man was made the standing jest of Heaven;And gold but sent to keep the fools in play, For some to heap, and some to throw away.
But I, who think more highly of our kind, (And surely, Heaven and I are of a mind)Opine, that Nature, as in duty bound, Deep hid the shining mischief under ground:
But when by man's audacious labour won, Flamed forth this rival to its sire, the sun, Then careful Heaven supplied two sorts of men, To squander these, and those to hide again.
Like doctors thus, when much dispute has past, We find our tenets just the same at last.
Both fairly owning Riches, in effect, No grace of Heaven or token of th' elect;Given to the fool, the mad, the vain, the evil, To Ward, to Waters, Chartres, and the devil.
B. What Nature wants, commodious gold bestows, 'Tis thus we eat the bread another sows.
P. But how unequal it bestows, observe;
'Tis thus we riot, while, who sow it, starve:
