| |
| NEVER mind how the pedagogue proses, | |
| You want not antiquity’s stamp; | |
| The lip, that such fragrance discloses, | |
| Oh! never should smell of the lamp. | |
| |
| Old Chloe, whose withering kisses | 5 |
| Have long set the Loves at defiance, | |
| Now, done with the science of blisses, | |
| May fly to the blisses of science! | |
| |
| Young Sappho, for want of employments, | |
| Alone o’er her Ovid may melt, | 10 |
| Condemned but to read of enjoyments, | |
| Which wiser Corinna had felt. | |
| |
| But for you to be buried in books— | |
| Oh, Fanny! they’re pitiful sages; | |
| Who could not in one of your looks | 15 |
| Read more than in millions of pages! | |
| |
| Astronomy finds in your eyes | |
| Better light than she studies above, | |
| And Music must borrow your sighs | |
| As the melody fittest for Love. | 20 |
| |
| In Ethics—’t is you that can check, | |
| In a minute, their doubts and their quarrels; | |
| Oh! show but that mole on your neck, | |
| And ’t will soon put an end to their morals. | |
| |
| Your Arithmetic only can trip | 25 |
| When to kiss and to count you endeavor; | |
| But eloquence glows on your lip | |
| When you swear that you ’ll love me forever. | |
| |
| Thus you see what a brilliant alliance | |
| Of arts is assembled in you,— | 30 |
| A course of more exquisite science | |
| Man need never wish to pursue. | |
| |
| And, oh!—if a Fellow like me | |
| May confer a diploma of hearts, | |
| With my lip thus I seal your degree, | 35 |
| My divine little Mistress of Arts! | |
| |
