[Page 308]

To POLLY LAURENCE, quitting the Pump.

BATH, January 1756.

1 SPITE of beauty, air, and grace,
2 With honour hast thou run thy race!
3 In sunshine well thy part thou'st play'd —
4 Now, sweet Polly, seek the shade.
5 The prudent general, tho' beat,
6 Reaps honour from a good retreat;
7 But nobler thou, thy thousands kill'd,
8 With flying colours leav'st the field.
9 Let not retirement give the spleen,
10 Thy sex's longing — to be seen:
11 But teach the vicious and the vain,
12 Their pleasure's but refining pain.
13 Teach the gay by thy retreat,
14 Eternal giggle is not wit;
15 And the formal fool advise,
16 Prudery cannot make her wise.
17 Take with thee to thy private state
18 Th' applauses of the good and great;
19 The best reward below allow'd
20 Of a conduct great and good.

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About this text

Title (in Source Edition): To POLLY LAURENCE, quitting the Pump. BATH, January 1756.
Author: William Hall
Themes: women; female character; beauty
Genres:
References: DMI 27775

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Source edition

Dodsley, Robert, 1703-1764. A Collection of Poems in Six Volumes. By Several Hands. Vol. V. London: printed by J. Hughs, for R. and J. Dodsley, 1763 [1st ed. 1758], p. 308. 6v.: music; 8⁰. (ESTC T131163; OTA K104099.005) (Page images digitized by the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive from a copy in the archive's library.)

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The text has been typographically modernized, but without any silent modernization of spelling, capitalization, or punctuation. The source of the text is given and all editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. Based on the electronic text originally produced by the TCP project, this ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.