Tag Archives: Alexander Pope

Strange Graces

khnopff
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

 

Sappho’s Greasy Toilet Task

Sappho's Toilet

Rufa, whose eye quick-glancing o’er the park,

Attracts each light gay meteor of a spark,

Agrees as ill with Rufa studying Locke,

As Sappho’s diamonds with her dirty smock;

Or Sappho at her toilet’s greasy task,

With Sappho fragrant at an ev’ning Masque:

So morning insects that in muck begun,

Shine, buzz, and flyblow in the setting sun.

How soft is Silia! fearful to offend;

The frail one’s advocate, the weak one’s friend:

To her, Calista prov’d her conduct nice,

And good Simplicius asks of her advice.

Sudden, she storms! she raves! You tip the wink,

But spare your censure; Silia does not drink.

All eyes may see from what the change arose,

All eyes may see—a pimple on her nose.

Papillia, wedded to her doating spark,

Sighs for the shades—”How charming is a park!”

A park is purchas’d, but the fair he sees

All bath’d in tears—”Oh, odious, odious trees!”

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

The Cynthia of this Minute

 

arnold-bocklin-villa-au-bord-de-la-mer-1878

Nothing so true as what you once let fall,

“Most Women have no Characters at all.”

Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear,

And best distinguish’d by black, brown, or fair.

 

         How many pictures of one nymph we view,

All how unlike each other, all how true!

Arcadia’s Countess, here, in ermin’d pride,

Is, there, Pastora by a fountain side.

Here Fannia, leering on her own good man,

And there, a naked Leda with a Swan.

Let then the Fair one beautifully cry,

In Magdalen’s loose hair and lifted eye,

Or dress’d in smiles of sweet Cecilia shine,

With simp’ring angels, palms, and harps divine;

Whether the charmer sinner it, or saint it,

If folly grows romantic, I must paint it.

 

         Come then, the colours and the ground prepare!

Dip in the rainbow, trick her off in air;

Choose a firm cloud, before it fall, and in it

Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute.

 

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