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Her Right Name

By Matthew Prior

Topics: classic

As Nancy at her toilette sat, Admiring this, and blaming that, Tell me, she said, but tell me true, The nymph who could your heart subdue. What sort of charms does she possess? Absolve me, fair one, I'll confess With pleasure, I replied: Her hair, In ringlets rather dark than fair, Does down her ivory bosom roll, And hiding half adorns the whole, In her high forehead's fair half round Love sits, in open triumph crown'd; He, in the dimple of her chin, In private state, by friends is seen. Her eyes are neither black nor grey, Nor fierce nor feeble is their ray; Their dubious lustre seems to show Something that speaks nor yes nor no. Her lips no living bard, I weet, May say how red, how round, how sweet: Old Homer only could indite Their vagrant grace and soft delight: They stand recorded in his book, When Helen smiled, and Hebe spoke, The gypsy, turning to her glass, Too plainly show'd she knew the face; And which am I most like, she said, Your Cloe or your Nut-brown Maid!

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Author:Matthew Prior

"As Nancy at her toilette sat,..." by Matthew Prior

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Matthew Prior

About Matthew Prior

Matthew Prior (1664–1721) was an English poet and diplomat. His poem "Alma: or, The Progress of the Mind" and his epitaph "Nobles and heralds, by your leave" are witty Augustan verse.

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