Why, how now, Doll Diamond, you're very alert; Is it your French breeding has made you so pert? Because I was civil, here's a stir with a pox: Who is it that values your ---- or your fox? Sure 'tis to her honour, he ever should bed His bloody red hand to her bloody red head. You're proud of your gilding; but I tell you each nail Is only just tinged with a rub at her tail; And although it may pass for gold on a ninny, Sure we know a Bath shilling soon from a guinea. Nay, her foretop's a cheat; each morn she does black it, Yet, ere it be night, it's the same with her placket. I'll ne'er be run down any more with your cant; Your velvet was wore before in a mant, On the back of her mother; but now 'tis much duller,-- The fire she carries hath changed its colour. Those creatures that draw me you never would mind, If you'd but look on your own Pharaoh's lean kine; They're taken for spectres, they're so meagre and spare, Drawn damnably low by your sorrel mare. We know how your lady was on you befriended; You're not to be paid for 'till the lawsuit is ended: But her bond it is good, he need not to doubt; She is two or three years above being out. Could my Knight be advised, he should ne'er spend his vigour On one he can't hope of e'er making _bigger_. [Footnote 1: Mrs. Dorothy Stopford, afterwards Countess of Meath, of whom Swift says, in his Journal to Stella, Feb. 23, 1711-12, "Countess Doll of Meath is such an owl, that, wherever I visit, people are asking me, whether I know such an Irish lady, and her figure and her foppery." See, _post_, the Poem entitled, "Dicky and Dolly."--_W. E. B._] TO LORD HARLEY, ON HIS MARRIAGE[1] OCTOBER 31, 1713