EUPHROSYNE, WITH A WAND AND CUP.
SOME critic, or I'm much deceived, will ask,
“What means this wild, this allegoric masque?
Beyond all bounds of truth this author shoots;
Can wands or cups transform men into brutes ?
'Tis idle stuff!"-And yet I'll prove it true;
Attend; for sure I mean it not of you.
The mealy fop, that tastes my cup, máy try,
How quick the change from beau to butterfly;
But o'er the Insect should the Brute prevail,
He grins a monkey with a length of tail.
One stroke of this, as sure as Cupid's arrow,
Turns the warm youth into a wanton sparrow.
Nay, the cold prude becomes a slave to love,
Feels a new warmth, and cooes a billing dove.
The sly coquet, whose artful tears beguile
Unwary hearts, weeps a false crocodile.
Dull poring pedants, shock'd at truth's keen light,
Turn moles, and plunge again in friendly night;
Misers grow vultures, of rapacious mind,
Or more than vultures, they devour their kind;