[Page 229]

The POWER of BEAUTY.

1 O GODDESS of eternal Smiles,
2 Bright Cythera the fair,
3 Who taught Sabina's pleasing Wiles,
4 By which she won Bellair.
5 Bellair, the witty and the vain,
6 Who laugh'd at Beauty's Pow'r;
7 But now the conquer'd humble Swain
8 Adores a painted Flow'r.
[Page 230]
9 With Delia's Art my Song inspire,
10 Whose Lips of rosy Hue
11 Can ne'er the partial Audience tire,
12 Tho' wiser Claudia's do.
13 Tho' Claudia's Wit and Sense refin'd,
14 Flows easy from her Tongue;
15 Her Soul but coarsly is enshrin'd,
16 So Claudia's in the wrong.
17 Hark, Delia speaks that blooming Fair,
18 See Crowds are gathering round
19 With open Mouths: and wildly stare
20 To catch the empty Sound.
21 See Lelia with a Judgment clear,
22 With manly Wisdom blest;
23 Wit, Learning, Prudence, all appear
24 In that unruffled Breast.
[Page 231]
25 But yet no Beau for Lelia dies,
26 No Sonnets pave her way;
27 Say, Muse, from whence these Evils rise,
28 Why Lelia's Teeth decay.
29 Then, why do rev'rend Sages rail
30 At Woman's wanton Pride?
31 If Wisdom, Wit, and Prudence fail,
32 Let meaner Arts be try'd.
33 Those Arts to please are only meant;
34 But with an angry Frown,
35 The Queen of Wisdom lately sent
36 This Proclamation down:
37 Minerva, with the azure Eyes,
38 And thus the Statute runs,
39 If you wou'd have your Daughters wise,
40 Take care to mend your Sons.

Text

  • TEI/XML [chunk] (XML - 67K / ZIP - 7.8K) / ECPA schema (RNC - 357K / ZIP - 73K)
  • Plain text [excluding paratexts] (TXT - 1.3K / ZIP - 939 )

Facsimile (Source Edition)

(Page images digitized from a copy at University of California Libraries.)

Images

PDF

All Images (PDF - 1.5M)

About this text

Title (in Source Edition): The POWER of BEAUTY.
Author: Mary Leapor
Themes: sex; relations between the sexes; women; female character; beauty
Genres: address
References: DMI 23751

Text view / Document view

Source edition

Leapor, Mrs. (Mary), 1722-1746. Poems upon several occasions: By Mrs. Leapor of Brackley in Northamptonshire. London: printed: and sold by J. Roberts, 1748, pp. 229-231. 15,[5],282p. ; 8⁰. (ESTC T127827; Foxon p. 413; OTA K101776.000) (Page images digitized from a copy at University of California Libraries.)

Editorial principles

The text has been typographically modernized, but without any silent modernization of spelling, capitalization, or punctuation. The source of the text is given and all editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. Based on the electronic text originally produced by the TCP project, this ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.

Other works by Mary Leapor