How could a nymph so chaste as Chloe,
With constitution cold and snowy,
Permit a brutish man to touch her?
Ev'n lambs by instinct fly the butcher.
Resistance on the wedding-night
Is what our maidens claim by right:
And Chloe, 'tis by all agreed,
Was maid in thought, in word, and deed.
Yet some assign a different reason;
That Strephon chose no proper season.
Say, fair ones, must I make a pause,
Or freely tell the secret cause?
Twelve cups of tea (with grief I speak)
Had now constrained the nymph to leak.
This point must needs be settled first:
The bride must either void or burst.
Then see the dire effects of pease;
Think what can give the colick ease.
The nymph oppress'd before, behind,
As ships are toss'd by waves and wind,
Steals out her hand, by nature led,
And brings a vessel into bed;
Fair utensil, as smooth and white
As Chloe's skin, almost as bright.
Strephon, who heard the fuming rill
As from a mossy cliif distil,
Cry'd out, Ye Gods! what sound is this?
Can Chloe, heavenly Chloe, ?
But when he smelt a noisome steam,
Which oft' attends that lukewarm stream:
(Salerno both together joins,
As sovereign medicines for the loins;)
And though contriv'd, we may suppose,
To slip his ears, yet struck his nose:
