Literary Lady, The

What motley cares Corilla's mind perplex,
    Whom maids and metaphors conspire to vex!
    In studious dishabille behold her sit,
    A lettered gossip and a household wit;
    At once invoking, though for different views,
    Her gods, her cook, her milliner and muse.
    Round her strewed room a frippery chaos lies,
    A checkered wreck of notable and wise,
    Bills, books, caps, couplets, combs, a varied mass,
    Oppress the toilet and obscure the glass;
    Unfinished here an epigram is laid,
    And there a mantua-maker's bill unpaid.
    There new-born plays foretaste the town's applause,
    There dormant patterns pine for future gauze.
    A moral essay now is all her care,
    A satire next, and then a bill of fare.
    A scene she now projects, and now a dish;
    Here Act the First, and here, Remove with Fish.
    Now, while this eye in a fine frenzy rolls,
    That soberly casts up a bill for coals;
    Black pins and daggers in one leaf she sticks,
    And tears, and threads, and bowls, and thimbles mix.