Go, wond'rous Creature! where the potion glides[7] From Bowls unmeasured in illumin'd tides; Instruct each other, in your due degrees; Correct old Rules, and be e'en what you please; Go, drink! for who shall jointed power contest? Drink to the passable, the good, the best. And, quitting Custom and her idle plan, 120 Call drowning reason imitating Man; Like lovers' brains in giddy circles run, And, all exhausting, imitate the Sun; Go, and be Man in noise and glorious strife, Then drop into his Arms and be a----Wife. Ye Gods! what scenes upon my Fancy press, The Consequence of unconfin'd excess; When Vice in common has one general name, And male and female Errors be the same; For, as the strength of Spirit none contest, 130 That daring Ill shall introduce the rest; Then, what a field of glory will arise, What dazzling scenes, ye Fair, before your eyes: As female duels, Jockies----what besides? Gamblers in petticoats, and booted brides; The tender Billet to the gentle swain, That boldly dares avouch the am'rous pain; Soft Beaux intreated, gentle Coxcombs prest, And Fops asham'd half blush to be addrest. Thus to sweet Strephon will his Chloris say, 140 One cup of Nectar having pav'd the way; "Oh! why so dead to my emploring eyes, Deaf to my prayer, and speechless to my sighs? Sure never Nymph of old, my darling Boy, When Men intreated, and when we were coy, Was prest so warmly by a bleeding swain, Or shot from killing eyes such cold disdain." And thus will run wild Flavia's Billetdoux, The writing bold, and e'en the spelling true: "No more, my Belmour, shun these longing arms, 150 Thou quintessence of all thy Sex's charms; At ten--behind the elm, where echoes sigh, Shall, taught [by] me, teach thee my swain to die; The conscious Moon shall fill her lucid horn, And join thy Blush to mock the crimson morn; The limpid Stream shall softly move along, And hear its own sweet warble from thy tongue; There come, dear boy, or vainly flow the streams, There come, or vainly sheds the moon her beams; Vainly on her my Moments I shall waste, 160 She who like thee is cold, and who like thee is chaste." But then what tender Stripling shall escape? What blushing Boy avoid a Lady-Rape? Where shall each lisping creature hide his head, To amazonian desires betray'd? Where from the wily Heroine remove, Clad in the fortitude of Wine and Love? Oh! hapless Lad, what refuge canst thou find Too soft, too mild, too tender to be kind? Yet this is no objection understood, 170 "For partial Evil's universal Good."