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Home  »  The Book of Restoration Verse  »  John Oldmixon (1673–1742)

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.

Those Arts Which Common Beauties Move

John Oldmixon (1673–1742)

THOSE arts which common beauties move,

Corinna, you despise:

You think there’s nothing wise in love

Or eloquent in sighs.

You laugh at ogle, cant, and song,

And promises abuse:

But say—for I have courted long—

What methods shall I use?

We must not praise your charms and wit,

Nor talk of dart and flame;

But sometimes you can think it fit

To smile at what you blame.

Your sex’s forms, which you disown,

Alas! you can’t forbear;

But in a minute smile and frown,

Are tender and severe.

Corinna, let us now be free;

No more your arts pursue,

Unless you suffer me to be

As whimsical as you.

At last the vain dispute desist,

To love resign the field:

’Twas custom forced you to resist,

And custom bids you yield.