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.