Ladies, like variegated tulips, show,

‘Tis to their changes that their charms they owe;

Their happy spots the nice admirer take,

Fine by defect, and delicately weak.

‘Twas thus Calypso once each heart alarm’d,

Aw’d without virtue, without beauty charm’d;

Her tongue bewitch’d as oddly as her eyes,

Less wit than mimic, more a wit than wise;

Strange graces still, and stranger flights she had,

Was just not ugly, and was just not mad;

Yet ne’er so sure our passion to create,

As when she touch’d the brink of all we hate.

from:  To a Lady on the Characters of Women  by Alexander Pope