The Literary Lady

WHAT motley cares Corilla’s mind perplex,

Whom maids and metaphors conspire to vex!

In studious dishabille behold her sit,

A lettered gossip and a household wit;

At once invoking, though for different views,

Her gods, her cook, her milliner, and muse.

Round her strewed room a frippery chaos lies,

A checkered wreck of notable and wise;

Bills, books, caps, couplets, combs, a varied mass,

Oppress the toilet and obscure the glass;

Unfinished, here an epigram is laid,

And there, a mantua-maker’s bill unpaid;

There, new-born plays foretaste the town’s applause,

There, dormant patterns pine for future gauze.

A moral essay now is all her care,

A satire next, and then a bill of fare.

A scene she now projects, and now a dish;

Here Act the First, and here, Remove with Fish.

Now, while this eye in a fine frenzy rolls,

That soberly casts up a bill for coals;

Black pins and daggers in one leaf she sticks,

And tears, and threads, and bowls, and thimbles mix.