To raise the thought and touch the heart be thine! That charm shall grow, while what fatigues the ring, Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing: So when the sun's broad beam has tired the sight, All mild ascends the moon's more sober light; Serene in virgin modesty she shines, And unobserved the glaring orb declines. Oh! blest with temper whose unclouded ray Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day, She, who can love a sister's charms, or hear Sighs for a daughter with unwounded ear; She, who ne'er answers till a husband cools, Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules; Charms by accepting, by submitting sways, Yet has her humour most, when she obeys; Let fops or fortune fly which way they will; Disdains all loss of tickets, or Codille: Spleen, vapours, or small-pox, above them all, And mistress of herself, though China fall. And yet, believe me, good as well as ill, Woman's at best a contradiction still. Heaven, when it strives to polish all it can Its last best work, but forms a softer man; Picks from each sex, to make the fav'rite blest, Your love of pleasure, or desire of rest: Blends, in exception to all general rules, Your taste of follies, with our scorn of fools: Reserve with frankness, art with truth allied, Courage with softness, modesty with pride; Fixed principles, with fancy ever new; Shakes all together, and produces--You. Be this a woman's fame: with this unblest, Toasts live a scorn, and queens may die a jest. This Phoebus promised (I forget the year) When those blue eyes first opened on the sphere; Ascendant Phoebus watched that hour with care, Averted half your parents' simple prayer, And gave you beauty, but denied the pelf That buys your sex a tyrant o'er itself. The gen'rous god, who wit and gold refines, And ripens spirits as he ripens mines, Kept dross for duchesses--the world shall know it-- To you gave sense, good-humour, and a poet. EPISTLE III. TO ALLEN LORD BATHURST. ARGUMENT. Of the use of Riches.