Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.

On a Certain Lady at Court

Alexander Pope (1688–1744)

I KNOW a thing that’s most uncommon;

(Envy, be silent, and attend)

I know a reasonable woman,

Handsome and witty, yet a friend.

Not warp’d by passion, awed by rumour;

Not grave through pride, nor gay through folly;

An equal mixture of good-humour

And sensible soft melancholy.

‘Has she no faults then (Envy says), Sir?’

Yes, she has one, I must aver:

When all the world conspires to praise her,

The woman’s deaf, and does not hear.