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Matthew Prior - To Chloe Jealous
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    Dear Chloe, how blubber`d is that pretty face;
      Thy cheek all on fire, and thy hair all uncurl`d:
    Prythee quit this caprice; and (as old Falstaff says)
      Let us e`en talk a little like folks of this world.

    How canst thou presume, thou hast leave to destroy
      The beauties, which Venus but lent to thy keeping?
    Those looks were design`d to inspire love and joy:
      More ord`nary eyes may serve people for weeping.

    To be vext at a trifle or two that I writ,
     Your judgment at once, and my passion you wrong:
   You take that for fact, which will scarce be found wit:
     Odds life! must one swear to the truth of a song?

   What I speak, my fair Chloe, and what I write, shows
     The diff`rence there is betwixt nature and art:
   I court others in verse; but I love thee in prose:
     And they have my whimsies, but thou hast my heart.

   The god of us verse-men (you know, child) the Sun,
     How after his journeys he sets up his rest:
   If at morning o`er earth `tis his fancy to run;
     At night he declines on his Thetis`s breast.

   So when I am wearied with wand`ring all day,
     To thee my delight in the evening I come:
   No matter what beauties I saw in my way;
     They were but my visits, but thou art my home.

   Then finish, dear Chloe, this pastoral war;
     And let us like Horace and Lydia agree:
   For thou art a girl as much brighter than her,
     As he was a poet sublimer than me.
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