| |
| ALL travellers at first incline | |
| Where’er they see the fairest sign: | |
| And if they find the chambers neat, | |
| And like the liquor and the meat, | |
| Will call again, and recommend | 5 |
| The Angel Inn to every friend. | |
| What though the painting grows decay’d, | |
| The house will never lose its trade: | |
| Nay, though the treacherous tapster, Thomas, | |
| Hangs a new Angel two doors from us, | 10 |
| As fine as daubers’ hands can make it, | |
| In hopes that strangers may mistake it, | |
| We think it both a shame and sin | |
| To quit the true old Angel Inn. | |
| Now this is Stella’s case in fact, | 15 |
| An angel’s face a little crack’d, | |
| (Could poets or could painters fix | |
| How angels look at thirty-six:) | |
| This drew us in at first to find | |
| In such a form an angel’s mind; | 20 |
| And every virtue now supplies | |
| The fainting rays of Stella’s eyes. | |
| See at her levee crowding swains, | |
| Whom Stella freely entertains | |
| With breeding, humour, wit, and sense, | 25 |
| And puts them but to small expense; | |
| Their minds so plentifully fills, | |
| And makes such reasonable bills, | |
| So little gets for what she gives, | |
| We really wonder how she lives! | 30 |
| And had her stock been less, no doubt | |
| She must have long ago run out. | |
| Then who can think we’ll quit the place, | |
| When Doll hangs out a newer face? | |
| Or stop and light at Chloe’s head, | 35 |
| With scraps and leavings to be fed? | |
| Then, Chloe, still go on to prate | |
| Of thirty-six and thirty-eight; | |
| Pursue your trade of scandal-picking, | |
| Your hints that Stella is no chicken; | 40 |
| Your innuendoes, when you tell us, | |
| That Stella loves to talk with fellows: | |
| And let me warn you to believe | |
| A truth, for which your soul should grieve; | |
| That should you live to see the day, | 45 |
| When Stella’s locks must all be gray, | |
| When age must print a furrow’d trace | |
| On every feature of her face; | |
| Though you and all your senseless tribe, | |
| Could art, or time, or nature bribe, | 50 |
| To make you look like Beauty’s Queen, | |
| And hold for ever at fifteen; | |
| No bloom of youth can ever blind | |
| The cracks and wrinkles of your mind: | |
| All men of sense will pass your door, | 55 |
| And crowd to Stella’s at four-score. | |
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