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The Ladys Dressing Room

By haughty Celia spent in dressing;

The goddess from her chamber issues,

Arrayed in lace, brocades, and tissues.

Strephon, who found the room was

And Betty otherwise employed,

Stole in and took a strict

Of all the litter as it lay;

Whereof, to make the matter clear,

An inventory follows here.

And first a dirty smock appeared,

Beneath the arm-pits well besmeared.

Strephon, the rogue, displayed it

And turned it round on every side.

On such a point few words are best,

And Strephon bids us guess the rest;

And swears how damnably the men

In calling Celia sweet and cleanly.

Now listen while he next

The various combs for various uses,

Filled up with dirt so closely fixt,

No brush could force a way betwixt.

A paste of composition rare,

Sweat, dandruff, powder, lead and hair;

A forehead cloth with oil

To smooth the wrinkles on her front.

Here alum flower to stop the

Exhaled from sour unsavory streams;

There night-gloves made of Tripsy's hide,

Bequeath'd by Tripsy when she died,

With puppy water, beauty's help,

Distilled from Tripsy's darling whelp;

Here gallypots and vials placed,

Some filled with washes, some with paste,

Some with pomatum, paints and slops,

And ointments good for scabby chops.

Hard by a filthy basin stands,

Fouled with the scouring of her hands;

The basin takes whatever comes,

The scrapings of her teeth and gums,

A nasty compound of all hues,

For here she spits, and here she spews.

But oh! it turned poor Strephon's bowels,

When he beheld and smelt the towels,

Begummed, besmattered, and

With dirt, and sweat, and ear-wax grimed.

No object Strephon's eye escapes:

Here petticoats in frowzy heaps;

Nor be the handkerchiefs

All varnished o'er with snuff and snot.

The stockings, why should I expose,

Stained with the marks of stinking toes;

Or greasy coifs and pinners reeking,

Which Celia slept at least a week in?

A pair of tweezers next he

To pluck her brows in arches round,

Or hairs that sink the forehead low,

Or on her chin like bristles grow.

The virtues we must not let pass,

Of Celia's magnifying glass.

When frighted Strephon cast his eye

It shewed the visage of a giant.

A glass that can to sight

The smallest worm in Celia's nose,

And faithfully direct her

To squeeze it out from head to tail;(For catch it nicely by the head,

It must come out alive or dead.)Why Strephon will you tell the rest?

And must you needs describe the chest?

That careless wench! no creature warn

To move it out from yonder corner;

But leave it standing full in

For you to exercise your spite.

In vain, the workman shewed his

With rings and hinges

To make it seem in this disguiseA cabinet to vulgar eyes;

For Strephon ventured to look in,

Resolved to go through thick and thin;

He lifts the lid, there needs no more:

He smelt it all the time before.

As from within Pandora's box,

When Epimetheus oped the locks,

A sudden universal

Of humane evils upwards flew,

He still was comforted to

That Hope at last remained behind;

So Strephon lifting up the

To view what in the chest was hid,

The vapours flew from out the vent.

But Strephon cautious never

The bottom of the pan to

And foul his hands in search of Hope.

O never may such vile

Be once in Celia's chamber seen!

O may she better learn to keep"Those secrets of the hoary deep"!

As mutton cutlets, prime of meat,

Which, though with art you salt and

As laws of cookery

And toast them at the clearest fire,

If from adown the hopeful

The fat upon the cinder drops,

To stinking smoke it turns the

Poisoning the flesh from whence it came;

And up exhales a greasy

For which you curse the careless wench;

So things which must not be exprest,

When plumpt into the reeking chest,

Send up an excremental

To taint the parts from whence they fell,

The petticoats and gown perfume,

Which waft a stink round every room.

Thus finishing his grand survey,

Disgusted Strephon stole

Repeating in his amorous fits,

Oh!

Celia,

Celia,

Celia shits!

But vengeance,

Goddess never sleeping,

Soon punished Strephon for his peeping:

His foul Imagination

Each dame he see with all her stinks;

And, if unsavory odors fly,

Conceives a lady standing by.

All women his description fits,

And both ideas jump like

By vicious fancy coupled fast,

And still appearing in contrast.

I pity wretched Strephon

To all the charms of female kind.

Should I the Queen of Love

Because she rose from stinking ooze?

To him that looks behind the

Satira's but some pocky queen.

When Celia in her glory shows,

If Strephon would but stop his nose(Who now so impiously

Her ointments, daubs, and paints and creams,

Her washes, slops, and every

With which he makes so foul a rout),

He soon would learn to think like

And bless his ravished sight to

Such order from confusion sprung,

Such gaudy tulips raised from dung.

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Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for …

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