University of Virginia Library

Then comes the Heroine, soul of feeling,
With passion, heavenly passion, reeling;
Her eye all flash, her cheek all glow,
Her soul on fire from top to toe;
Though lost, still loved, a glorious wreck,
Her thoughts as naked as her neck;
Faults, follies, frailties, crimes, combine,
They make her but the more divine.
She robs, stabs, poisons,—but her tear,
Delicious drop! makes all things clear.
And take your life, or take your purse,
My lady's not a hair the worse.
I pledge myself to keep the peace—
May Fair shall be my only Greece.
One twinkle of young P*g*t's eyes,
Worth all the stars in all her skies;
Ladies and Loves, your poet's pen
Shall charm you but with Christian men,
No goblins worse than Brooks' or White's.
I scorn to give you nightmare nights;
I starve you on no Alpine tract;
I plunge you down no cataract;
(Grim forests all the skylight dimming—
Below, for life, the lady swimming;)
No sudden lava round you flashes,
Leaving the world a beauty's ashes;
No Rhenish eddy sucks you under,
To rise some fishy Dutchman's wonder;
You fill no wolf's luxurious paunch;
You freeze beneath no avalanche;
You see no storms in terror stalk;
You hear no hills in high Dutch talk;
When, ‘by particular desire,’
Old Nick deserts his house of fire;
And, ‘that night only,’ plays his parts,
In his old Drury Lane, the Hartz;
While new-spread clouds on all the hills
Serve for the Roscius' posting-bills.