Sylvia, A Fragment.

Sylvia my heart in wondrous wise alarm'd     Awed without sense, and without beauty charm'd:     But some odd graces and some flights she had,     Was just not ugly, and was just not mad:     Her tongue still ran on credit from her eyes,     More pert than witty, more a wit than wise:     Good-nature, she declared it, was her scorn,     Though 'twas by that alone she could be borne:     Affronting all, yet fond of a good name;     A fool to pleasure, yet a slave to fame:     Now coy, and studious in no point to fall,     Now all agog for D----y at a ball:     Now deep in Taylor, and the Book of Martyrs,     Now drinking citron with his Grace and Chartres.     Men, some to business, some to pleasure take;     But every woman's in her soul a rake.     Frail, feverish sex; their fit now chills, now burns:     Atheism and superstition rule by turns;     And a mere heathen in the carnal part,     Is still a sad good Christian at her heart.