Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/533

 MATTHEW PRIOR

From some real care but more fancied vexation, From a life parti-colour'd half reason half passion, Here lies after all the best wench in the nation.

From the Rhine to the Po, from the Thames to the Rhone,

Joanna or Janneton, Jinny or Joan,

'Twas all one to her by what name she was known.

For the idiom of words very little she heeded, Provided the matter she drove at succeeded, She took and gave languages just as she needed.

So for kitchen and market, for bargain and sale,

She paid English or Dutch or French down on the nail,

But in telling a story she sometimes did fail;

Then begging excuse as she happened to stammer, With respect to her betters but none to her grammar, Her blush helped her out and her jargon became her.

Her habit and mien she endeavor'd to frame

To the different gout of the place where she came;

Her outside still chang'd, but her inside the same.

At the Hague in her slippers and hair as the mode is,

At Paris all falbalow'd fine as a goddess,

And at censuring London in smock sleeves and bodice.

She order 'd affairs that few people could tell In what part about her that mixture did dwell Of Frow, or Mistress, or Mademoiselle.

For her surname and race let the heralds e'en answer; Her own proper worth was enough to advance her, And he who liked her, little valued her grandsire.

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