Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 7.djvu/198

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186
SWIFT'S POEMS.

Two brightest, brittlest, earthly things,
A lady's face, and China-ware.

She ventures now to lift the sash;
The window is her proper sphere:
Ah, lovely nymph! be not too rash,
Nor let the beaux approach too near.

Take pattern by your sister star:
Delude at once and bless our sight;
When you are seen, be seen from far,
And chiefly choose to shine by night.

But art no longer can prevail,
When the materials all are gone;
The best mechanick hand mast fail,
Where nothing's left to work upon.

Matter, as wise logicians say,
Cannot without a form subsist;
And form, say I as well as they,
Must fail, if matter brings no grist.

And this is fair Diana's case;
For all astrologers maintain,
Each night a bit drops off her face,
When mortals say she's in her wane:

While Partridge[1] wisely shows the cause
Efficient of the moon's decay,
That Cancer with his poisonous claws
Attacks her in the milky way:

But Gadbury[1], in art profound,
From her pale cheeks pretends to show,
That swain Endymion is not found,
Or else that Mercury's her foe.

  1. 1.0 1.1 Partridge and Gadbury wrote each an ephemeris.

But,