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Mrs. PITT.
On the skirts of the Drama, by Habit suspended,Regard wrinkled Pitt, ere her hours are ended:
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She toils in expanding her time-narrow'd chest:
Like an old foundered doe, that's hoof-beaten and blind,
And abridg'd in all powers but those of the mind,
She limps o'er that course where she formerly run,
Ere the clouds of Pandora had darken'd her sun:
To renovate health in her faint-ebbing veins,
And preserve an existence that's scarce worth the pains,
She nibbles with care the salubrious sod,
And hails the injunctions prescrib'd by her God.
Tho' condemn'd by Disease to recline in her home,
Yet with bliss she surveys the young fawns as they roam;
Reviews in their transports what once were her own,
And fondly reflects on those joys she has known.—
Her petulant Deborah's mirth's ready source,
And her snip-snap denials have wonderful force;
Acrimoniously hasty her prejudice flows,
Like a virgin whom Winter has chill'd with his snows;
And whose envious mind bids her cease to be gay,
Having pass'd in neglect her meridian day.
Her Quickly, her Dorcas, old Spinsters and Nurse,
Are parts, when she dies, should be laid in her hearse.
In that cast of the Drama her merit's excessive,
For she gives them a colouring high and expressive;
With a peevish acidity sharpens their features,
As Nature declares them legitimate creatures:
Like John of Gaunt's sword, when she rots at her length,
There's none will be able to wield them with strength.
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