Two brightest, brittlest, earthly things,
A lady's face, and China-ware.
She ventures now to lift the sash;
The window is her proper sphere:
Ah, lovely nymph! be not too rash,
Nor let the beaux approach too near.
Take pattern by your sister star:
Delude at once and bless our sight;
When you are seen, be seen from far,
And chiefly choose to shine by night.
But art no longer can prevail,
When the materials all are gone;
The best mechanick hand mast fail,
Where nothing's left to work upon.
Matter, as wise logicians say,
Cannot without a form subsist;
And form, say I as well as they,
Must fail, if matter brings no grist.
And this is fair Diana's case;
For all astrologers maintain,
Each night a bit drops off her face,
When mortals say she's in her wane:
While Partridge[1] wisely shows the cause
Efficient of the moon's decay,
That Cancer with his poisonous claws
Attacks her in the milky way:
But Gadbury[1], in art profound,
From her pale cheeks pretends to show,
That swain Endymion is not found,
Or else that Mercury's her foe.
But,
