Metin
And shady grove, relieve in summer's heat;
Warm fires in winter; thirst makes water sweet.
Now is the time your artifice to try,
Act not so much the lover as the spy;
For vanity makes all the fair presume
435
There's nothing which their charms can misbecome.
Take this occasion her defects to find,
When you can fix them deeply in your mind;
In the dull minute of your discontents,
(The pensive mood when sated love repents,)
440
To your sick thoughts her blemishes display,
And, for aversion, by those means make way.
These helps, you'll say, are trivial; I confess,
Singly they are, but join'd will have success.
By one small viper's bite an ox is killed;This is a little malicious on the sex, and shows that the least vice of a mistress is fatal to a lover.
445
The forest-boar by a less dog is held.
Unite my precepts if apart they fail,
And by resistless number you'll prevail.
But different minds for different methods call,
Nor what cures most will have effect on all;
450
