To Madam G. with Mrs Phillips's Poems

Orinda's lasting Works to you I send,
Not doubting but you'l prove her lasting Friend;
Accept and lay her to your Breast, you'l find
She's Entertainment for the noblest Mind,
And to your Sex this lasting Honour brings,
That they are capable of highest things:
Her Verses and her Vertuous Life declare,
'Tis not your only Glory to be Fair.
How can you fail to Conquer, when your Darts
Are double-pointed still that reach our Hearts?
Wing'd with your Beauty, guided by your Wit,
What mark so distant that they cannot hit?
Darkness in vain wou'd interpose between;
With these advantages you wound unseen.
But by what Magick has her Heav'nly Song
Lain from thy knowing view conceal'd so long,
When not the Sun, who is the God of Wit,
Makes more unweary'd searches after it?
Great Shakespear, Fletcher, Denham, Waller, Ben,
Cowley, and all th' Immortal, tuneful Men
Thou'st made thy own, and none can better tell
Where they are low, and where they most excel,
Can reach their heights when thou art pleas'd to write,
Soaring a pitch that dazles human sight!
But O! when thou hast read this matchless Book,
And from it's excellence a Judgment took,
What the fair Sex was then, thou, sure, wilt mourn
To see how justly now they're branded with our scorn.
Farces and Songs obscene, remote from Wit,
(Such as our Sappho to Lisander writ)
Employs their time; so far th' abuse prevails,
Their Verses are as vitious as their Tails;
Both are expos'd; alike, to publick view,
And both of 'em have their Admirers too.
With just abhorrence look upon these Crimes,
And by thy chast Example fix the Times;
Right the wrong'd Age, redeem thy Sex from shame,
'Twas so Orinda got her deathless Name;
Thou art as fair, hast the like skill in Song,
And all that thou dost write will last as long.