WITH pretty speech accost both old and young,
And speak it trippingly upon the tongue;
But if you mouth it with a hoyden laugh,
With clumsy ogling and uncomely chaff—
As I have oft seen done at fancy fairs,
I had as lief a huckster sold my wares,
Avoid all so-called beautifying, dear.
Oh! it offends me to the soul to hear
The things that men among themselves will say
Of some _soi-disant_ “beauty of the day,”
Whose face, when she with cosmetics has cloyed it,
Out-Rachels Rachel! pray you, girls, avoid it.
Neither be you too tame—but, ere you go,
Provide yourselves with sprigs of mistletoe;
Offer them coyly to the Roman herd—
But don’t you suit “the action to the word,”
For in that very torrent of your passion
Remember modesty is still in fashion.
Oh, there be ladies whom I’ve seen hold stalls—
Ladies of rank, my dear—to whom befalls
Neither the accent nor the gait of ladies;
So clumsily made up with Bloom of Cadiz,
Powder-rouge—lip-salve—that I’ve fancied then
They were the work of Nature’s journeymen.
_W. S. Gilbert._