Martinsburg Gazette And Public Advertiser

THE FEMALE SLANDERER.

There is a spell on beauty's power,
A cloud upon her noon-day hour--
On her white virgin robe a stain,
O'er native grace a fettering chain;
Some wizard art, like that which led
In eastern love th' Arabian maid.
In one fair form thy potent spells
Unite what charms and what repels
And like the magnet's adverse poles,
Attracts, yet frights the gazer's souls;
Her eye with beams of love is bright,
But pestilence is in its light;
Her cheek with softest crimson glows.
But there's a Canker in the rose;
There's venom in that ruby lip,
Where Love's arrowy store should dip:
And accents form'd most strangely there,
Taint and infect the ambient air;
It is as if on seraph's tongue
A demon's withering curses hung
The enchanted fruit a dragon keeps;
Beneath the Bowers a serpent sleeps;
Soon as we hear the thrilling hiss,
From that luxuriant bower of bliss,
That fair redundancy of charms,
Shuddering at once in wild alarms,
The Loves their purple pinions ply,
And from the scene affrighted fly.

'Tis Malice rankling in the heart,
Tis viperous Slander's baneful art,
That blights the bloom to beauty given,
And mars the workmanship of Heaven!