Page:The poetical works of William Cowper (IA poeticalworksof00cowp).pdf/154

70 Her form with dress and lotion they repair, Then kiss their idol and pronounce her fair. The sacred implement I now employ Might prove a mischief or at best a toy, A trifle if it move but to amuse, But if to wrong the judgment and abuse, Worse than a poignard in the basest hand, It stabs at once the morals of a land. Ye writers of what none with safety reads, Footing it in the dance that fancy leads, Ye novellists who marr what ye would mend, Sniv'ling and driv'ling folly without end, Whose corresponding misses fill the ream With sentimental frippery and dream, Caught in a delicate soft silken net By some lewd Earl, or rake-hell Baronet; Ye pimps, who under virtue's fair pretence, Steal to the closet of young innocence, And teach her unexperienced yet and green, To scribble as you scribble at fifteen; Who kindling a combustion of desire, With some cold moral think to quench the fire, Though all your engineering proves in vain, The dribbling stream ne'er puts it out again; Oh that a verse had power, and could command Far, far away, these flesh-flies of the land, Who fasten without mercy on the fair, And suck, and leave a craving maggot there. Howe'er disguised the inflammatory tale, And covered with a fine-spun specious veil, Such writers and such readers owe the gust And relish of their pleasure all to lust. But the muse eagle-pinioned has in view A quarry more important still than you, Down down the wind she swims and sails away, Now stoops upon it and now grasps the prey. Petronius! all the muses weep for thee, But ev'ry tear shall scald thy memory. The graces too, while virtue at their shrine Lay bleeding under that soft hand of thine, Felt each a mortal stab in her own breast, Abhorred the sacrifice, and cursed the priest. Thou polished and high finished foe to truth, Gray beard corruptor of our list'ning youth, To purge and skim away the filth of vice, That so refined it might the more entice, Then pour it on the morals of thy son To taint his heart, was worthy of thine own. Now while the poison all high life pervades, Write if thou can'st one letter from the shades, One, and one only, charged with deep regret, That thy worst part, thy principles live yet;