Poem by Matthew Prior

Phyllis's Age

How old may Phyllis be, you ask,
Whose beauty thus all hearts engages?
To answer is no easy task;
For she has really two ages.

Stiff in brocard, and pinch'd in stays,
Her patches, paint, and jewels on;
All day let envy view her face;
And Phyllis is but twenty-one.

Paint, patches, jewels laid aside,
At night astronomers agree,
The evening has the day belied;
And Phyllis is some forty-three.

1. Seeing the Duke of Ormond's Picture, at Sir Godfrey Kneller's
2. To the Author of the Foregoing Pastoral - (Love and Friendship)
3. A Letter to Lady Margaret Cavendish Holles-Harley, When a Child
4. Cupid Mistaken
5. An Extempore Invitation to the Earl of Oxford, Lord High Treasurer

Print

1382 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version