Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/136

8 Full on the fair his beams Apollo flung, And fond persuasion tipp'd her easy tongue; He gave her words, where oily flattery lays The pleasing colours of the art of praise; And wit, to scandal exquisitely prone, Which frets another's spleen to cure its own.

Those sacred Virgins whom the bards revere, Tun'd all her voice, and shed a sweetness there, To make her sense with double charms abound, Or make her lively nonsense please by sound.

To dress the maid, the decent Graces brought A robe in all the dyes of beauty wrought, And plac'd their boxes o'er a rich brocade Where pictur'd loves on every cover play'd; Then spread those implements that Vulcan's art Had fram'd to merit Cytherea's heart; The wire to curl, the close-indented comb To call the locks, that lightly wander, home; And chief, the mirror, where the ravish'd maid Beholds and loves her own reflected shade.

Fair Flora lent her stores, the purpled Hours Confin'd her tresses with a wreath of flowers; Within the wreath arose a radiant crown; A veil pellucid hung depending down; Back roll'd her azure veil with serpent fold, The purfled border deck'd the floor with gold.