The flies ftruck filent gaze with wonder down: Wipes the falt dew that trickles down his face, Ye foolish nurflings of the fummer air, And this your ferny fhade forfakes the vale, He ceas'd the Flies, incorrigibly vain, Heard the May'r's fpeech, and fell to fing again. AN An ELEGY, to an Old BEAUTY. N vain, poor Nymph, to please our youthful fight IN You fleep in cream and frontlets all the night, Your face with patches foil, with paint repair, Dress with gay gowns, and shade with foreign hair. If truth in spight of manners must be told, Why really fifty-five is fomething old. Once you were young; or one, whofe life's fo long She might have borne my mother, tells me wrong. And once, fince envy's dead before you dye, The women own, you play'd a sparkling eye, Taught the light foot a modish little trip, And pouted with the prettiest purple lip To fome new Charmer are the rofes fled, Which blew, to damafk all thy cheek with red; Youth calls the Graces there to fix their reign, So So parting fummer bids her flow'ry prime But thou, fince Nature bids, the world refign, 'Tis now thy daughter's daughter's time to shine. With more addrefs, or fuch as pleases more, She runs her female exercises o'er Unfurls her closes, raps or turns the fan, Let time that makes you homely, make you fage, The fphere of wifdom is the fphere of age. 'Tis true, when beauty dawns with early fire, (Their trembling luftre shows how much you shake) Or bid her wear thy necklace row'd with pearl, You'll find your Fanny an obedient girl.. So for the reft, with less incumbrance hung, Or Folly dreft, and rambling all her days, Yet Yet ftill fedate yourself, and gravely plain, 'Twas thus, if man with woman we compare, The wife Athenian croft a glittering fair, Unmov'd by tongues and fights, he walk'd the place, Thro' tape, toys, tinfel, gimp, perfume and lace ; Then bends from Mars's hill his awful eyes, And What a world I never want? he cries: But cries unheard: for folly will be free. So parts the buzzing gaudy crowd, and he: As careless he for them, as they for him; He wrapt in wisdom, and they whirl'd by whim. The |