The Poetical Writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck/To an Elderly Coquette
TO AND ELDERLY COQUETTE.
“Parcius junctas quatiunt fenestras.”
Horace, Book I., Ode 25.
h, Chloe! no more at each party and ball
You shine the gay queen of the hour,
The lip, that alluringly smiled upon all,
Finds none to acknowledge its power;
No longer the hearts of the dandies you break,
No poet adores you in numbers;
No billets-doux sweeten, nor serenades wake
The peaceful repose of your slumbers.
Dissipation has clouded those eloquent eyes,
That sparkled like gems of the ocean;
Thy bosom is fair—but its billowy rise
Awakens no kindred commotion:
And pale are those rubies of rapture, where Love
Had showered his sweetest of blisses;
And the wrinkles which Time has implanted above,
Are covered in vain with false tresses.
The autumn is on thee—fell Scandal prepares
To hasten the wane of thy glory;
Too soon Disappointment will hand thee down-stairs,
And old maidenhood end the sad story:
For me—long escaped from your trammels—I choose
To enlist in the new corps of jokers;
Abandoning Chloe, I kneel to the Muse,
And, instead of love-ditties, write Croakers.
D.
