Portsmouth's Looking Glass

Methinks I see you, newly risen
From your embroider'd Bed and pissing,
With studied mien and much grimace,
Present yourself before your glass,
To vanish and smooth o'er those graces,
You rubb'd off in your Night Embraces.

John Wilmot

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, was an English poet and courtier of King Charles II's Restoration court. Renowned for his rakish lifestyle and his satirical and bawdy verses, Wilmot penned some of the most controversial poetry of his time. Despite his short life, his work significantly influenced English literature, especially the libertine and Restoration comedy genres. His eloquence combined with a wild lifestyle, making him a quintessential figure of Restoration England.

John Wilmot

Song

John Wilmot, Simple Poetry

The Platonic Lady

John Wilmot, Simple Poetry

By All Love's Soft, Yet Mighty Powers

John Wilmot, Simple Poetry

To His Mistress

John Wilmot, Simple Poetry

English

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The Lament Of The Looking-Glass

Words from the mirror softly pass
To the curtains with a sigh:
"Why should I trouble again to glass
These smileless things hard by,
Since she I pleasured once, alas,
Is now no longer nigh!"

"I've imaged shadows of coursing cloud,
And of the plying limb
On the pensive pine when the air is loud
With its aerial hymn;
But never do they make me proud
To catch them within my rim!

"I flash back phantoms of the night
That sometimes flit by me,
I echo roses red and white -
The loveliest blooms that be -
But now I never hold to sight
So sweet a flower as she."

Thomas Hardy

The Looking-Glass.

ON MRS PULTENEY.^[81]

With scornful mien, and various toss of air,
Fantastic, vain, and insolently fair,
Grandeur intoxicates her giddy brain,
She looks ambition, and she moves disdain.
Far other carriage graced her virgin life,
But charming Gumley's lost in Pulteney's wife.
Not greater arrogance in him we find,
And this conjunction swells at least her mind:
Oh could the sire, renown'd in glass, produce
One faithful mirror for his daughter's use!
Wherein she might her haughty errors trace,
And by reflection learn to mend her face:
The wonted sweetness to her form restore,
Be what she was, and charm mankind once more!

Alexander Pope

The Looking-Glass. : On Mrs. Pulteney

With scornful mien, and various toss of air,
Fantastic vain, and insolently fair,
Grandeur intoxicates her giddy brain,
She looks ambition, and she moves disdain.
Far other carriage grac'd her virgin life,
But charming G-y's lost in Py's wife.
Not greater arrogance in him we find,
And this conjunction swells at least her mind:
O could the sire renown'd in glass, produce
One faithful mirror for his daughter's use!
Wherein she might her haughty errors trace,
And by reflection learn to mend her face:
The wonted sweetness to her form restore,
Be what she was, and charm mankind once more!

Alexander Pope

The Sonnets LXXVII - Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear

Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;
These vacant leaves thy minds imprint will bear,
And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.
The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show
Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;
Thou by thy dials shady stealth mayst know
Times thievish progress to eternity.
Look! what thy memory cannot contain,
Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find
Those children nursed, deliverd from thy brain,
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.
These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.

William Shakespeare

The Sonnets III - Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest

Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another;
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose uneard womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb,
Of his self-love to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mothers glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.
But if thou live, rememberd not to be,
Die single and thine image dies with thee.

William Shakespeare

Lines Upon Seeing ---- At One Of The Annual Banquets Given In Guildhall.

Gorgeous and splendid was the sight;
From myriad lamps a fairy light
Enshrin'd in wreaths the Gothic wall,
And heav'nly music fill'd the hall!

But there was one - (alas! that I
Had ever seen) - the melody
Her voice surpassed, and brighter far
Her eyes than ev'ry mimic star!

I gaz'd, until, oh! thought divine!
I fancied she I saw was mine;
But soon the beauteous vision flew -
The stranger-form I lov'd withdrew.

Yet still she lives within my breast,
There mem'ry has her form imprest: -
Thus, when some minstrel's strain is done,
Sounds seem to breathe, for ever gone!

John Carr