Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham

An Epigram on a Painted Lady With Ill Teeth

Were men so dull they could not see
That Lyce painted; should they flee,
Like simple birds, into a net
So grossly woven and ill set,
Her own teeth would undo the knot,
And let all go that she had got.
Those teeth fair Lyce must not show
If she would bite; her lovers, though
Like birds they stoop at seeming grapes,
Are disabused when first she gapes;
The rotten bones discover’d there,
Show ’tis a painted sepulchre.