OF TEMPER.
3
Yet every day, by transmutation rare,
Turn'd to a Tory in his elbow-chair,
And made his daughter pay, howe'er absurd,
Passive obedience to his sovereign word.
In his domestic sway he borrow'd aid
From prim Penelope, an ancient maid,
His upright sister, conscious of her worth,
Who valued still her beauty, and her birth;
Tho' from her birth no envied rank she gain'd,
And of her beauty but the ghost remain'd;
A restless ghost! that with remembrance keen
Proclaim'd incessant what it once had been;
Delighted still the steps of youth to haunt,
To watch the tender nymph, and warm gallant;
And with an eye that petrified pursuit,
Hang, like the dragon o'er th' Hesperian fruit.
Tho' strictly guarded by this jealous power,
The mild Serena no restraint could sour:
Pure was her bosom as the silver lake,
Ere rising winds the ruffled water shake,
Turn'd to a Tory in his elbow-chair,
And made his daughter pay, howe'er absurd,
Passive obedience to his sovereign word.
In his domestic sway he borrow'd aid
From prim Penelope, an ancient maid,
His upright sister, conscious of her worth,
Who valued still her beauty, and her birth;
Tho' from her birth no envied rank she gain'd,
And of her beauty but the ghost remain'd;
A restless ghost! that with remembrance keen
Proclaim'd incessant what it once had been;
Delighted still the steps of youth to haunt,
To watch the tender nymph, and warm gallant;
And with an eye that petrified pursuit,
Hang, like the dragon o'er th' Hesperian fruit.
Tho' strictly guarded by this jealous power,
The mild Serena no restraint could sour:
Pure was her bosom as the silver lake,
Ere rising winds the ruffled water shake,
