Time & Brevity
Phillis's Age
From Poems on Several Occasions
HOW old may Phillis be, you ask,
Whose beauty thus all hearts engages ?
To answer is no easy task :
For she has really two ages.
Stiff in brocade, and pinch'd in stays,
Her patches, paint, and jewels on ;
All day let envy view her face,
And Phillis is but twenty-one.
Paint, patches, jewels laid aside,
At night astronomers agree,
The evening has the day belied ;
And Phillis is some forty-three.
Codex Note
An epigram on Phillis's two ages, twenty-one by day when she is painted and forty-three at night when she is not.
Cite this poem
MLA
Prior, Matthew. “Phillis's Age.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/prior/30/.
Chicago
Prior, Matthew. “Phillis's Age.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/prior/30/.
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