Poetry:On a Certain Lady at Court
From Tractatus
This page(pg. 530) in my copy of A Treasury of Great Poems(Untermeyer)
is marked with a photograph.
--Iain 23:48, 5 Dec 2005 (EST)
Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
On a Certain Lady at Court
I know the thing that's most uncommon (Envy, be silent and attend!); I know a reasonable woman, Handsome and witty, yet a friend. Not warped by passion, awed by rumor, Not grave through pride, or gay through folly, An equal mixture of good humor, 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.