WHAT motley cares Corilla's mind perplex, Whom maids and metaphors conspire to vex! In studious dishabille behold her sit, A lettered gossip and a household wit; At once invoking, though for different views, Her gods, her cook, her milliner and muse. Round her strewed room a frippery chaos lies, A checkered wreck of notable and wise. Bills, books, caps, couplets, combs, a varied mass, Oppress the toilet and obscure the glass; Unfinished here an epigram is laid, And there a mantua-maker's bill unpaid. There new-born plays foretaste the town's applause, There dormant patterns pine for future gauze. A moral essay now is all her care, A satire next, and then a bill of fare. A scene she now projects, and now a dish; Here Act the First, and here, Remove with Fish. Now, while this eye in a fine frenzy rolls, That soberly casts up a bill for coals; Black pins and daggers in one leaf she sticks, And tears, and threads, and bowls, and thimbles mix. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HOLY POEMS: 1 by GEORGE BARKER THE VOICE OF THE BANJO by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR ON LENDING A PUNCH BOWL by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES BISHOP HATTO [AND THE RATS] by ROBERT SOUTHEY MAN FRAIL AND GOD ETERNAL by ISAAC WATTS ON SICK LEAVE, 1916 by HAMILTON FISH ARMSTRONG THE ARID LANDS by HERBERT BASHFORD THE CANTERBURY TALES: THE FRANKLIN'S PROLOGUE by GEOFFREY CHAUCER SEVEN SONNETS ON THE THOUGHT OF DEATH: 1 by ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH |