Classic Poem

" Relax, sweet girl, your wearied mind,
And to hear the poet talk,
Gentlest creature of your kind,
Lay aside your spunge and chalk;
Cease, cease the bar-bell, nor refuse
To hear the jingle of the Muse.

Hear your numerous vot'ries prayers,
Come, O come and bring with thee
Giddy whimsies, wanton airs,
And all love's soft artillery;
Smiles and throbs, and frowns, and tears,
With all the little hopes and fears. "

She heard — she came — and ere she spoke,
Not unravish'd you might see,
Her wanton eyes that wink'd the joke,
Ere her tongue could set it free.
While her forc'd blush her cheeks inflam'd,
And seem'd to say she was asham'd.

No handkerchief her bosom hid,
No tippet from our sight debars
Her heaving breasts with moles o'erspread,
Markt, little hemispheres, with stars;
While on them all our eyes we move,
Our eyes that meant immoderate love.

In every gesture, every air,
Th' imperfect lisp, the languid eye,
In every motion of the fair
We awkward imitators vie,
And forming our own from her face,
Strive to look pretty, as we gaze.

If e'er she sneez'd, the mimic crowd
Sneez'd too, and all their pipes laid down;
If she but stoopt, we lowly bow'd,
And sullen, if she 'gan to frown,
In solemn silence sat profound —
But did she laugh? — the laugh went round.

Her snuff-box if the nymph pull'd out,
Each J OHNIAN in responsive airs,
Fed with the tickling dust his snout,
With all the politesse of bears
Dropt she her fan benath her hoop?
Ev'n stake-stuck C LARIANS strove to stoop.

The sons of culinary K AY'S
Smoaking from the eternal treat,
Lost in ecstatic transport gaze,
As tho' the fair was good to eat;
Ev'n gloomiest K ING'S-MEN , pleas'd awhile,
" Grin horribly a ghastly smile "

But hark; she cries, " my mamma calls, "
And strait, she's vanish'd from our sight;
'Twas then we saw the empty bowls,
'Twas then we first perceiv'd it night;
While all, sad synod, silent moan,
Both that she went — and went alone.