Bouts Rimez[1]

ON SIGNORA DOMITILLA


Our schoolmaster may roar i' th' fit,
    Of classic beauty, haec et illa;
Not all his birch inspires such wit
    As th'ogling beams of Domitilla.

Let nobles toast, in bright champaign,
    Nymphs higher born than Domitilla;
I'll drink her health, again, again,
    In Berkeley's tar,[2] or sars'parilla.

At Goodman's Fields I've much admired
    The postures strange of Monsieur Brilla;
But what are they to the soft step,
    The gliding air of Domitilla?

Virgil has eternized in song
    The flying footsteps of Camilla;[3]
Sure, as a prophet, he was wrong;
    He might have dream'd of Domitilla.

Great Theodose condemn'd a town
    For thinking ill of his Placilla:[4]
And deuce take London! if some knight
    O' th' city wed not Domitilla.

Wheeler,[5] Sir George, in travels wise,
    Gives us a medal of Plantilla;
But O! the empress has not eyes,
    Nor lips, nor breast, like Domitilla.

Not all the wealth of plunder'd Italy,
    Piled on the mules of king At-tila,
Is worth one glove (I'll not tell a bit a lie)
    Or garter, snatch'd from Domitilla.

Five years a nymph at certain hamlet,
    Y-cleped Harrow of the Hill, a-
- bused much my heart, and was a damn'd let
    To verse - but now for Domitilla.

Dan Pope consigns Belinda's watch
    To the fair sylphid Momentilla,[6]
And thus I offer up my catch
    To the snow-white hands of Domitilla.