Who like Sir GILBERT now was blest?
With rapture he embrac'd his guest.
Fair CELIA blush'd, and FLORIO utter'd
Half sentences, or rather mutter'd
Disjointed words — as, "honour! pleasure!
" Kind! — vastly good, Ma'am! — beyond measure; "
Tame expletives, with which dull Fashion
Fills vacancies of sense and passion.
Yet, tho' disciple of cold Art,
FLORIO perceiv'd he had a heart;
He saw; and but that Admiration,
Had been too active, too like passion,
Or had he been to Ton less true,
Cupid had shot him thro' and thro;
But, vainly speeds the surest dart,
Where FASHION'S mail defends the heart,
The shaft her cold repulsion found,
And fell, without the pow'r to wound:
For Fashion, with a mother's joy,
Dipp'd in her lake the darling boy,
That lake, whose chilling waves impart
The gift to freeze the warmest heart:
Yet, guarded as he was with phlegm,
With such delight he ey'd the dame,
The Goddess strait his peril knew,
And, instant, to his succour flew;
But all was safe; she saw and smil'd,
And claim'd the triumph of her child.