To A Young Beauty

To A Young Beauty

DEAR fellow-artist, why so free

With every sort of company,

With every Jack and Jill?

Choose your companions from the best;

Who draws a bucket with the rest

Soon topples down the hill.

You may, that mirror for a school,

Be passionate, not bountiful

As common beauties may,

Who were not born to keep in trim

With old Ezekiels cherubim

But those of Beauvarlet.

I know what wages beauty gives,

How hard a life her setvant lives,

Yet praise the winters gone:

There is not a fool can call me friend,

And I may dine at journeys end

With Landor and with Donne.