Virginia Argus

FROM THE PORT FOLIO.

The following verses are quite sufficient to vindicate Mr. Moore's pretensions to genius. He is addressing a very young lady, who is supposed to have expressed her regret that she was not profoundly skilled in science and literature:-

Never mind how the pedagogue proses,
You want not antiquity's stamp;
The lip, that's so scented with roses,
Oh! never must smell of the lamp.

Old Chloe, whose withering kisses
Have long set the loves at defiance,
Now, done with the science of blisses,
May fly to the blisses of science.

Young Sappho, for want of employment
Alone o'er her Ovid may melt,
Condemn'd but to read of enjoyment,
Which wiser Corinna had felt.

But for you to be buried in books,
Oh Fanny! they're pitiful sages,
Who could not in one of your looks
Read more than in millions of pages!

Astronomy finds in your eye
Better lights than she studies above,
And music must borrow your sigh
As the melody dearest to love.

In ethics 'tis you that can check
In a minute their doubts and their quarrels,
Oh! shew but that mole on your neck,
And 'twill soon put an end to their morals.

Your arithmetic only can trip
When to kiss and to count you endeavor,
But eloquence glows on your lip
When you swear that you'll love me for ever.

Thus you see what a brilliant alliance
Of arts is assembled in you,
A course of more exquisite science
Man never need wish to go through.

And oh! if a fellow like me
May confer a diploma of hearts,
With my lips thus I seal your degree,
My divine little mistress of arts.