Edward Moore

’Tis now the summer of your youth: time has not cropt the roses from your cheek, though sorrow long has washed them.

I am rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

I'll tell thee what it [the world] says: it calls me a villain: a treacherous husband; a cruel father; a false brother; one lost to nature and her charities; or, to say all in one short word, it calls me—gamester.

The trav’ller, if he chance to stray, May turn uncensured to his way; Polluted streams again are pure, And deepest wounds admit a cure; But woman no redemption knows; The wounds of honour never close.

But from the hoop’s bewitching round, Her very shoe has power to wound.

The maid who modestly conceals Her beauties, while she hides, reveals; Give but a glimpse, and fancy draws Whate’er the Grecian Venus was.

Can’t I another’s face commend, And to her virtues be a friend, But instantly your forehead lours, As if her merit lessen’d yours?

O Poverty! thou source of human art, Thou great inspirer of the poet’s song!

But beauty has wings, and too hastily flies, And love, unrewarded, soon sickens and dies.

Time still, as he flies, brings increase to her truth, And gives to her mind what he steals from her youth.

This is adding insult to injuries.