The dimpled tracks of some foregoing smile; } His raging pulse beats thick, and his pent spirits boil. } This is the product e'en of prosperous love; Think then what pangs disastrous passions prove; Innumerable ills; disdain, despair, With all the meagre family of care. Thus, as I said, 'tis better to prevent, Than flatter the disease, and late repent; Because to shun the allurement is not hard To minds resolved, forewarned, and well prepared; But wonderous difficult, when once beset, To struggle through the straits, and break the involving net. Yet, thus ensnared, thy freedom thou may'st gain, If, like a fool, thou dost not hug thy chain; If not to ruin obstinately blind, } And wilfully endeavouring not to find } Her plain defects of body and of mind. } For thus the Bedlam train of lovers use To enhance the value, and the faults excuse; And therefore 'tis no wonder if we see They doat on dowdies and deformity. Even what they cannot praise, they will not blame, But veil with some extenuating name. The sallow skin is for the swarthy put, And love can make a slattern of a slut; If cat-eyed, then a Pallas is their love; If freckled, she's a party-coloured dove; If little, then she's life and soul all o'er; An Amazon, the large two-handed whore. She stammers; oh what grace in lisping lies! If she says nothing, to be sure she's wise. If shrill, and with a voice to drown a quire, Sharp-witted she must be, and full of fire; The lean, consumptive wench, with coughs decayed, Is called a pretty, tight, and slender maid; The o'er-grown, a goodly Ceres is exprest, A bedfellow for Bacchus at the least; Flat-nose the name of Satyr never misses, And hanging blobber lips but pout for kisses. The task were endless all the rest to trace; Yet grant she were a Venus for her face And shape, yet others equal beauty share, And time was you could live without the fair; She does no more, in that for which you woo, Than homelier women full as well can do. Besides, she daubs, and stinks so much of paint, Her own attendants cannot bear the scent, But laugh behind, and bite their lips to hold. Meantime, excluded, and exposed to cold, The whining lover stands before the gates, And there with humble adoration waits; Crowning with flowers the threshold and the floor, And printing kisses on the obdurate door; Who, if admitted in that nick of time, If some unsavoury whiff betray the crime, Invents a quarrel straight, if there be none, Or makes some faint excuses to be gone; And calls himself a doating fool to serve, Ascribing more than woman can deserve. Which well they understand, like cunning queans, And hide their nastiness behind the scenes,