| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910. | | | | The Declaimer | | By Henry Baker (1698–1774) |
| | | WOMAN! thoughtless, giddy creature; | |
| Laughing, idle, flutt’ring thing; | |
| Most fantastic work of Nature; | |
| Still, like Fancy, on the wing. | |
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| ‘Slave to every changing passion; | 5 |
| Loving, hating, in extreme; | |
| Fond of every foolish fashion; | |
| And, at best, a pleasing dream. | |
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| ‘Lovely trifle, dear illusion, | |
| Conquering weakness, wished-for pain; | 10 |
| Man’s chief glory and confusion; | |
| Of all vanity, most vain.’ | |
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| Thus deriding Beauty’s power, | |
| Bevil called it all a cheat; | |
| But, in less than half an hour, | 15 |
| Kneeled, and whined, at Celia’s feet. | | | | |
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