The Muses blush'd, to fee their friends exalting
Those elegant delights of jig and vaulting:
So charm'd you were, you ceas'd awhile to dote
On nonfenfe, gargled in an eunuch's throat :
All pleas'd to hear the chattering monsters speak,
As old wives wonder at the parson's Greek.
Such light ragoûts and mushrooms may be good,
To whet your appetites for wholfome food:
But the bold Briton ne'er in earnest dines
Without substantial haunches and furloins.
In wit, as well as war, they give us vigour;
Cressy was loft by kickshaws and foup-meagre.
Instead of light deferts and luscious froth,
Our poet treats to-night with Spartan broth;
To which, as well as all his former feafts,
The ladies are the chief-invited guests.
Crown'd with a kind of Glastonbury bays,
That bloom amid the winter of his days;
He comes, ambitious in his green decline,
To confecrate his wreath at beauty's shrine.
His Oroonoko never fail'd t' engage
The radiant circles of the former age :
Each bofom heav'd, all eyes were seen to flow,
And sympathize with Isabella's woe :
But Fate referv'd, to crown his elder fame,
The brightest audience for the Spartan Dame.