Two temples of magnifick size
Attract the curious traveller's eyes,
That might be envy'd by the Greeks;
Rais'd up by you in twenty weeks:
Here gentle goddess Cloacine
Receives all offerings at her shrine.
In separate cells, the hes and shes,
Here pay their vows with bended knees:
For 'tis prophane when sexes mingle,
And every nymph must enter single;
And when she feels an inward motion,
Come fill'd with reverence and devotion.
The bashful maid, to hide her blush.
Shall creep no more behind a bush;
Here unobserv'd she boldly goes,
As who should say, to pluck a rose.
Ye, who frequent this hallow'd scene,
Be not ungrateful to the dean;
But duly, ere you leave your station,
Offer to him a pure libation,
Or of his own or Smedley's lay,
Or billet-doux, or lock of hay:
And, O! may all who hither come,
Return with unpolluted thumb!
Yet, when your lofty domes I praise,
I sigh to think of ancient days.
Permit me then to raise my style,
And sweetly moralize a while.
Thee, bounteous goddess Cloacine,
To temples why do we confine?
Forbid in open air to breathe,
Why are thine altars fixt beneath?
When Saturn rul'd the skies alone,
(That golden age to gold unknown)
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