Philander, since you’ll have it so,
I grant I was impertinent;
And, till this Moment, did not know,
Thro’ all my Life what ’twas I meant.
Your kind Opinion was the flattering Glass,
In which my Mind found how deform’d it was.
In your clear Sense, which knows no Art,
I saw the Errors of my Soul:
And all the Foibless of my Heart
With one Reflection you controul.
Kind as a God, and gently you chastise:
By what you hate, you teach me to be wise.
Impertinence, my Sex’s shame,
That has so long my Life pursu’d,
You with such Modesty reclaim,
As all the Women has subdu’d.
To so Divine a Power what must I owe,
That renders me so like the perfect You?
That conversable Thing I hate,
Already, with a just Disdain,
That prides himself upon his Prate,
And is, of Words, that Nonsense, vain:
When in your few appears such Excellence,
As have reproach’d, and charm’d me into Sense.
For ever may I list’ning sit,
Tho’ but each Hour a Word be born;
I would attend the coming Wit,
And bless what can so well inform.
Let the dull World henceforth to Words be damn’d;
I’m into nobler Sense than Talking sham’d.
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