A Piece of Advice
So you’re going to give up flirtation, my dear,
And lead a life sober and quiet?
There, there, I don’t doubt the intention’s sincere.
But wait till occasion shall try it.—
Is Ramsay engaged?
Now, don’t look enraged!
You like him, I know—don’t deny it!
What! Give up flirtation? Change dimples for frowns
Why, Nell, what’s the use? You’re so pretty,
That your beauty all sense of your wickedness drowns
When, some time, in country or city,
Your fate comes at last.
We’ll forgive all the past,
And think of you only with pity.
Indeed!—so “you feel for the woes of my sex!”
“The legions of hearts you’ve been breaking
Your conscience affright, and your reckoning perplex,
Whene’er an account you’ve been taking!”
“I’d scarcely believe
How deeply you grieve
At the mischief your eyes have been making!”
Now, Nellie!—Flirtation’s the leaven of life;
It lightens its doughy compactness.
Don’t always—the world with deception is rife—
Construe what men say with exactness!
I pity the girl,
In society’s whirl,
Who’s troubled with matter-of-factness.
A pink is a beautiful flower in its way,
But rosebuds and violets are charming,
Men don’t wear the same boutonniére every day.
Taste changes.—Flirtation alarming!
If e’er we complain,
You then may refrain,
Your eyes of their arrows disarming.
Ah, Nellie, be sensible; Pr’ythee, give heed
To counsel a victim advances;
Your eyes, I acknowledge, will make our hearts bleed,
Pierced through by love’s magical lances.
But better that fate
Than in darkness to wait;
Unsought by your mischievous glances.