 | Poems on Several Occasions |  |
200
The TROUT, A FABLE.
To Miss ***
Yes, you have beauty, sense, and wit,
But want a grace that's lovely yet;
What's that, pray?—Prudence, heedless fair!
Much brighter than the others are;
A charm, so excellent confest,
It stamps perfection on the rest.
But want a grace that's lovely yet;
What's that, pray?—Prudence, heedless fair!
Much brighter than the others are;
A charm, so excellent confest,
It stamps perfection on the rest.
Where you appear, the servile train
Of fops, impertinent and vain,
Assemble, flatter, watch your eyes,
And praise your beauty to the skies.
Compleat in each coquettish air,
You ogle here, and flutter there;
And still at concert, ball, or play,
Are gayest of the giddy gay.
A little virtue guards the maid,
Content in fortune's humble shade;
A double portion they require
Who shine, to make the world admire.
Reflect, Lucinda, while you're proud
To reign amongst a foppish crowd,
If self-love make not reason wink,
And fate prove nearer than you think:
For, tho' I deem you chaste as snow,
Some witling, or some fav'rite beau,
May dull that jewel honour keeps;
The strictest virtue sometimes sleeps:
A truth to which you're not a stranger,
Yet ever running into danger:
For you this moral tale I print;
Perhaps your mind may take the hint.
Of fops, impertinent and vain,
Assemble, flatter, watch your eyes,
And praise your beauty to the skies.
Compleat in each coquettish air,
You ogle here, and flutter there;
And still at concert, ball, or play,
Are gayest of the giddy gay.
201
Content in fortune's humble shade;
A double portion they require
Who shine, to make the world admire.
Reflect, Lucinda, while you're proud
To reign amongst a foppish crowd,
If self-love make not reason wink,
And fate prove nearer than you think:
For, tho' I deem you chaste as snow,
Some witling, or some fav'rite beau,
May dull that jewel honour keeps;
The strictest virtue sometimes sleeps:
A truth to which you're not a stranger,
Yet ever running into danger:
For you this moral tale I print;
Perhaps your mind may take the hint.
A Trout, the vainest in the tide,
Had long the angler's skill defy'd;
With pleasure nibbled ev'ry bait,
And baulk'd his sure expected fate:
While self-conceit inflam'd his breast,
He, to himself, these lines addrest:
How wise am I to know my good!
How fearful half the finny brood!
I feast on rarities at will;
My sense evades the latent ill.
Had long the angler's skill defy'd;
With pleasure nibbled ev'ry bait,
And baulk'd his sure expected fate:
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He, to himself, these lines addrest:
How wise am I to know my good!
How fearful half the finny brood!
I feast on rarities at will;
My sense evades the latent ill.
It chanc'd one blithsome summer's day,
When Phœbus shot his fiercest ray,
Rejoic'd to feel the chearing beams,
He skim'd the surface of the streams;
Elate with pride, he flounc'd about;
A painted, pert, affected Trout;
A fly that instant o'er him flew;
He snapt, as fish are wont to do:
Tho' 'twas not one of nature's flies,
But art's, conceal'd in her disguise.
When Phœbus shot his fiercest ray,
Rejoic'd to feel the chearing beams,
He skim'd the surface of the streams;
Elate with pride, he flounc'd about;
A painted, pert, affected Trout;
A fly that instant o'er him flew;
He snapt, as fish are wont to do:
Tho' 'twas not one of nature's flies,
But art's, conceal'd in her disguise.
Compell'd to quit the lucid wave,
He mourn'd the fate his folly gave;
And, gasping on the river's side,
Convicted by himself, he cry'd;
And am I then at last betray'd?
At last by fraud a captive made?
My gay companions of the brook,
Oh, guard against th'insidious hook!
A thousand schemes deceit can try;
Who'd dream destruction from a fly?
The ling'ring death I now endure,
Proceeds from being too secure;
My own delusion's my undoing;
And vanity is caution's ruin.
He mourn'd the fate his folly gave;
And, gasping on the river's side,
Convicted by himself, he cry'd;
203
At last by fraud a captive made?
My gay companions of the brook,
Oh, guard against th'insidious hook!
A thousand schemes deceit can try;
Who'd dream destruction from a fly?
The ling'ring death I now endure,
Proceeds from being too secure;
My own delusion's my undoing;
And vanity is caution's ruin.
| Poems on Several Occasions | |