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The Poems of Edmund Waller

Edited by G. Thorn Drury

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ON MRS. HIGGONS.
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246

ON MRS. HIGGONS.

Ingenious Higgons never sought
To hide the candour of her thought;
And now her clothes are lost, we find
The nymph as naked as her mind:
Like Eve while yet she was untaught
To hide herself or know a fault.
For a snatched ribbon she would frown,
But cares too little for her gown;
It makes her laugh, and all her grief
Is lest it should undo the thief.
Already she begins to stretch
Her wit, to save the guilty wretch,
And says she was of goods bereft
By her own bounty, not by theft.
She thought not fit to keep her clothes
Till they were eaten up with moths,
But made a nobler use of store,
To clothe the naked and the poor.
Should all that do approve the fair
Her loss contribute to repair,
Of London she would have the fate,
And rise (undone) in greater state,
In points, and hoods, and Indian gown,
As glorious as the new-built town.