University of Virginia Library

LINES WRITTEN IN ANSWER TO AN HIEROGLYPHICAL LETTER FROM A LADY.

Dear Madam, your letter I'll try to explain,
An altar, a cradle, a moon in the wane;
And next a poor cuckold the paper adorns,
With ears of an ass, and two terrible horns;
A phaeton gay as the President's coach,
A mirror, a crown, and a gouty man's crutch;
These emblems masonic your pages contain,
To decypher their meaning has puzzled my brain:
The altar, I trust, is to Hymen erected,
A power by all good wedded people respected;
He gives to his suppliants, when pleas'd with their prayer,
A cradle, and crowns all their vows with an heir;
From which you this doctrine endeavour to prove,
That the friends of the cradle pay homage to love.
The dim waning moon is a moral profound,
It says nothing stable in pleasure is found;
Then e'en love once full orb'd may decrease to esteem,
Grow pale as the moon, and grow cold as her beam
That he who permits his affection to flag,
When grown cold as the moon must be crown'd like the stag.
What the crutches betoken admits of no doubt,
That vice and intemperance 'gender the gout;
That death must soon follow unless I amend,
You whisper this truth, and you act like a friend;
For the mirror you hand me reflects but too true
The marks of old age and intemperance too.
The phaeton next our attention must claim,
It reminds me of him whence we borrow the name;
He, thinking to guide the proud steeds of the sun,
Was dash'd from his car, and for ever undone;
Who, wanting true merit, aspires to be great,
Must tumble and meet with a Phaeton's fate.
Good sense and discretion should limit desire,
For danger increases as people mount higher;
And its better to live with mere mortals below,
Than hurl'd from the skies to be drown'd in the Po.
The last of your emblems I think is a crown,
And its meaning is not quite so obvious I own;
Perhaps it intends what the wise man allows,
That a virtuous wife is a crown to her spouse.
Though I trust this eulogium to many is due,
I am sure none more justly deserve it than you.