She ask'd about her friends below;
This meagre fop, that batter'd beau:
Whether some late departed toasts
Had got gallants among the ghosts?
If Chloe were a sharper still
As great as ever at quadrille?
(The ladies there must needs be rooks,
For cards, we know, are Pluto's books)
If Florimel had found her love,
For whom she hang'd herself above?
How oft a week was kept a ball
By Proserpine at Pluto's hall?
She fancied these Elysian shades
The sweetest place for masquerades:
How pleasant on the banks of Styx,
To troll it in a coach and six!
What pride a female heart inflames!
How endless are ambition's aims!
Cease, haughty nymph; the Fates decree
Death must not be a spouse for thee:
For, when by chance the meagre shade
Upon thy hand his finger laid,
Thy hand as dry and cold as lead,
His matrimonial spirit fled;
He felt about his heart a damp,
That quite extinguish'd Cupid's lamp:
Away the frighted spectre scuds,
And leaves my lady in the suds.
DAPHNE
