Master Cupid this morning arose in a hurry
“My dear Mama Venus, only see what a flurry,
Sure my Vot’ries are more than ever elated
All around me with amorous dispatches are freighted.
I think” says the arch fellow “in my later flights
I’ve observed some sly corners where e’en learned Wights
Have been busy as bees when collecting their honey
Making out a long train of scrawls serious and funny,
That throughout my vast Empire on this day of mine
To my Subjects are known by the term Valentine
One Place above others, where I once bore some sway
But the Muses now boast, that they carry the day,
And that they even took flight from Parnassus
To visit the sprightliest sweetest of Lasses
And so managed to give friend Apollo the slip
That to find them Mercurius was sent on a trip
And so fagg’d poor old Peg, that he look’d like a rip
I also suspect some other favorites of mine
Who long have been fondly attached to the nine
Have engaged in the task of attacking poor hearts
By fine Drawings of me, of my quivers and darts,
By sonnets and madrigals, and words breathing fire
Such only as I am won’t to inspire
Zooks! what fun ’twould be to entrap Nymphs so noted
Who to ’Poll and the Muses are so much devoted,
For I owe those nine Girls some very old spites
They’ve long been notorious for thwarting my rights
And though I may thank them for ennobling my chain
They too oft interfere with my absolute reign —”
Then standing on tiptoe, and spreading his wings
Seiz’d a quiver of darts, dipp’d in Helicon’s springs,
And with look the most arch, cried “a bold heart never loses
I’ll muster among these same Lasses the Muses,
Who I hear hid themselves in a Chest known to Fame
That from Attica’s classical Realms lately came
I’ll there lie in ambush” — “My dear Boy,” cried his Mother,
“The thought me delights, far beyond any other,
I too would go with you, but know by some forms
With the Muses I’m not upon visiting terms
They’ve passed some reflections that I choose not to brook
And we certainly therefore, cannot meet in a nook.
You shall not fail however, to see my best graces
Very fully dispensed in the forms and the faces
Of the Fair that assemble on each certain night
To the Muses devoted, and the Genii that write
For this Attic Emporium of Whim, Learning, and Genius
So priz’d by the witty, grave, gay, and ingenious.”
Look then well to your hearts, ye fair Damsels who meet
Round this Shrine of the Muses, for though you may greet
The approach of his Godship, and defying his darts
Think they’ll blunted fall, when directed at hearts
Protected by your’s by the aegis of Learning
Yet remember the Urchin is sly and discerning,
And when his sharpest darts he distributes around
Like a Tyrant he reigns, if as a Victor he wound.