Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON THE MASQUERADES, by CHRISTOPHER PITT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON THE MASQUERADES, by                    
First Line: Well - we have reached the precipice at last
Last Line: Retires confused, and will reveal no more.
Subject(s): Masquerades


WELL—we have reached the precipice at last;
The present age of vice obscures the past.
Our dull forefathers were content to stay,
Nor sinned till nature pointed out the way:
No arts they practised to forestall delight,
But stopped, to wait the calls of appetite.
Their top-debauches were at best precise,
An unimproved simplicity of vice.
But this blest age has found a fairer road,
And left the paths their ancestors had trod.
Nay, we could wear (our taste so very nice is)
Their old cast-fashions sooner than their vices.
Whoring till now a common trade has been,
But masquerades refine upon the sin:
An higher taste to wickedness impart,
And second nature with the helps of art.
New ways and means to pleasure we devise,
Since pleasure looks the lovelier in disguise.
The stealth and frolic give a smarter gust,
Add wit to vice, and elegance to lust.
In vain the modish evil to redress,
At once conspire the pulpit and the press:
Our priests and poets preach and write in vain;
All satire's lost, both sacred and profane.
So many various changes to impart
Would tire an Ovid's or a Proteus' art;
Where lost in one promiscuous whim we see
Sex, age, condition, quality, degree.
Where the facetious crowd themselves lay down,
And take up every person but their own.
Fools, dukes, rakes, cardinals, fops, Indian queens,
Belles in tie-wigs, and lords in harlequins;
Troops of right-honourable porters come,
And gartered small-coal-merchants crowd the room;
Valets adorned with coronets appear,
Lackeys of state, and footmen with a star:
Sailors of quality with judges mix,
And chimney-sweepers drive their coach and six.
Statesmen so used at court the mask to wear,
With less disguise assume the visor here.
Officious Hei[degge]r deceives our eyes,
For his own person is his best disguise:
And half the reigning toasts of equal grace
Trust to the natural visor of the face.
Idiots turn conjurors, and courtiers clowns,
And sultans drop their handkerchiefs to nuns.
Starched Quakers glare in furbelows and silk;
Beaux deal in sprats, and duchesses cry milk.
But guard thy fancy, Muse, nor stain thy pen
With the lewd joys of this fantastic scene,
Where sexes blend in one confused intrigue,
Where the girls ravish, and the men grow big;
Nor credit what the idle world has said
Of lawyers forced, and judges brought to bed,
Or that to belles their brothers breathe their vows,
Or husbands through mistake gallant a spouse.
Such dire disasters, and a numerous throng
Of like enormities, require the song:
But the chaste Muse, with blushes covered o'er,
Retires confused, and will reveal no more.





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