NAY now I'm sure my judgement's sound, Since ripe experience is its ground. Why, I my self have felt & seen Thy tedious vanity; Fond shameless World, & canst thou ween I will for thee ev'n common sense deny? 2 Thou wear'st a beauteous skin, I grant; And do the deadly Serpents want Those dangerous hypocrisies? Or is the Poisons soule Less its curs'd self, bycause it lies In the brave ambush of a golden boule? 3 When Israels, & Wisdomes, King Did stoutly to the touchstone bring Thy fairest Peeces, did not they Prove base-bred counterfets; Whose stamp though neat, & colour gay, Their purest ore was but refined Cheats. 4 And oh that I had been content To rest on his Experiment! But since I at the cost have been By thee deceivd to be, 'Tis not another World could win My heart to dote: or trust on empty thee. 5 Go fawn on those whose frothy minde Can solace in a bubble finde, And Juno in a Clowd imbrace; Who by the lying Paint Which smiles upon their Idols face Doubt not to count the beauties of their Saint. 6 And yet thy Paint's so silly too, It can no warey Lover woo. Indeed good Shaddows sprucely show; But where the Picture is Nothing besides, (and such art thou) It proves but artificial Ouglines. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BELL by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES THE LOCKLESS DOOR by ROBERT FROST HINTS OF AN HISTORICAL PLAY TO BE CALLED WILLIAM RUFUS by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM AUTUMN'S SPLENDOURS by CHARLES WILLIAM BRODRIBB EPITAPH ON NOISY POLEMIC (BURNS'S 'BLETH'RIN BITCH') by ROBERT BURNS |