The POET to his false Mistress. John Straight Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. T131163 K104099.005 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] pp. 256-257. 6v.: music; 8⁰.

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The POET to his false Mistress . By the same . WONDER not , faithless woman , if you see , Yourself so chang'd , so great a change in me . With shame I own it , I was once your slave , Ador'd myself the beauties which I gave ; For know , deceiv'd deceitful , that 'twas I Gave thy form grace , and lustre to thine eye : Thy tongue , thy fingers I their magic taught , And spread the net in which myself was caught . So pagan priests first form and dress the wood , Then prostrate fall before the senseless God . But now , curst woman , thy last sentence hear : I call'd thy beauty forth , I bid it disappear . I'll strip thee of thy borrow'd plumes ; undress , And shew thee in thy native ugliness . Those eyes have shone by me , by me that chin The seat of wanton Cupids long has been : Ye fires , go out — ye wanton Cupids , fly — Of ev'ry beam disarm her haggard eye : 'Tis I recall ye ; my known voice obey — And nought of beauty but the falshood stay .