Why, let it go, if I must tell it —
He'll sweat, and then the nymph may smell it;
While she, a goddess dy'd in grain,
Was unsusceptible of stain,
And, Venus like, her fragrant skin
Exhal'd ambrosia from within.
Can such a deity endure
A mortal human touch impure?
How did the humbled swain detest
His prickly beard, and hairy breast!
His nightcap, border'd round with lace,
Could give no softness to his face.
Yet, if the goddess could be kind,
What endless raptures must he find!
And goddesses have now and then
Come down to visit mortal men;
To visit and to court them too:
A certain goddess, God knows who,
(As in a book he heard it read)
Took colonel Peleus to her bed.
But what if he should lose his life
By venturing on his heavenly wife!
(For Strephon could remember well,
That once he heard a schoolboy tell,
How Semele, of mortal race,
By thunder died in Jove's embrace.)
And what if daring Strephon dies
By lightning shot from Chloe's eyes!
While these reflections fill'd his head.
The bride was put in form to bed:
He follow'd, stript, and in he crept,
But awfully his distance kept.
Now "ponder well, ye parents dear;"
Forbid your daughters guzzling beer;
