The LADY who offers her LOOKING GLASS to VENUS..

Taken from an Epigram of PLATO.

ENUS, take iny votive glass ;

VEN

Since I am not what I was;

What from this day I shall be,

Venus, let me never fee.

CLOE

JEALOUS.

I.

FOR

ORBEAR to afk me, why I weep;
Vext Cloe to her fhepherd faid;
"Tis for my two poor ftraggling fheep,
Perhaps, or for my squirrel dead.”
II.

For mind I what you late have writ ?
Your fubtle questions and replies?
Emblems, to teach a female wit

The ways, where changing Cupid flies ?

III.

Your riddle purpos'd to rehearse

The general power that beauty has :

But why did no peculiar verse

Describe one charm of Cloe's face?

IV.

The glass, which was at Venus' shrine,
With fuch mysterious forrow laid :
The garland (and you call it mine)

Which fhew'd how youth and beauty fade:

V.

Ten thousand trifles light as these

Nor can my rage, nor anger, move:
She should be humble, who would please ;
And the muft fuffer, who can love.
VI.

When in my glass I chanc'd to look ;
Of Venus what did I implore?

That every grace, which thence I took,

Should know to charm my Damon more.
VII.

Reading thy verfe; who heeds, faid. I;
If here or there his glances flew ?
O, free for ever be his eye,

Whose heart to me is always true!

VIII.

My bloom indeed, my little flower
Of Beauty quickly lost its pride:
For, fever'd from its native bower,
It on thy glowing bosom dy'd.
IX.

Yet car'd I not what might prefage

Or withering wreath, or fleeting youth; Love I esteem'd more strong than Age, And Time lefs permanent than Truth.

X.

Why then I weep, forbear to know:
Fall uncontroul'd, my tears, and free;
O Damon! 'tis the only woe,

I ever yet conceal'd from thee.
XI.

The fecret wound with which I bleed
Shall lie wrapt up, ev'n in my hearse;
But on my tomb-ftone thou fhalt read
My answer to thy dubious verfe.

Answer to CLOE JEALOUS, in the fame Stile; the AUTHOR fick.

I.

YES, faireft proof of Beauty's power,

Dear idol of my panting heart,

Nature points this my fatal hour:
And I have liv'd; and we must part..

nor fhed a tear;

Heave thou no figh,

Left yet my half-clos'd eye may view,
On earth an object worth its care.

III.

From Jealoufy's tormenting ftrife
For ever be thy bofom freed:
That nothing may disturb thy life,

Content I haften to the dead.

IV. Yet

IV.

Yet when some better-fated youth

Shall with his amorous parly move thee;
Reflect one moment on his truth
Who dying thus, perfifts to love thee.

A BETTER

ANSWER.

DEAR Cloc, how blubber'd is that pretty face!

Thy cheek all on fire, and thy hair all uncurl'd: Pr'ythee quit this caprice; and (as old Falstaff says) Let us ev'n talk a little like folks of this world.

II.

How canft thou prefume, thou haft leave to destroy The beauties, which Venus but lent to thy keeping? Those looks were defign'd to inspire love and joy : More ordinary eyes may ferve people for weeping.

III.

To be vext at a trifle or two that I writ,

Your judgment at once, and my paffion, you wrong: You take that for fact, which will scarce be found wit: Od's-life! muft one fwear to the truth of a fong? IV.

What I fpeak, my fair Cloe, and what I write, fhews
The difference there is betwixt nature and art:

I court others in verse; but I love thee in prose :
And they have my whimsies, but thou hast my heart.

VOL. I.

K

V. The

V.

The God of us verse-men (you know, child) the Sun,
How after his journeys he fets up his reft:

If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to run;
At night he declines on his Thetis's breast.
VI.

So when I am weary'd with wandering all day;
To thee my delight in the evening I come :
No matter what beauties I faw in my way;
They were but my vifits, but thou art my home.
VII.

Then finish, dear Cloe, this paftoral war;
And let us like Horace and Lydia agree :
For thou art a girl as much brighter than her,
As he was a poet fublimer than me.

PALLAS

AND

VENUS.

AN EPIGRAM.

HE Trojan Swain had judg'd the great difpute,

THE

And Beauty's power obtain'd the golden fruit; When Venus, loofe in all her naked charms, Met Jove's great daughter clad in fhining arms. The wanton goddess view'd the warlike maid From head to foot, and tauntingly she said: Yield, fifter; rival, yield naked, you fee, I vanquish guess how potent I fhould be, If to the field I came in armour dreft; Dreadful, like thine, my fhield, and terrible

:

my

creft!

The