A Piece Of Advice.

So you're going to give up flirtation, my dear,                 And lead a life sober and quiet?             There, there, I don't doubt the intention's sincere.                 But wait till occasion shall try it.                         Is Ramsay engaged?                         Now, don't look enraged!                 You like him, I know don't deny it!             What! Give up flirtation? Change dimples for frowns                 Why, Nell, what's the use? You're so pretty,             That your beauty all sense of your wickedness drowns                 When, some time, in country or city,                         Your fate comes at last.                         We'll forgive all the past,                 And think of you only with pity.             Indeed! so "you feel for the woes of my sex!"                 "The legions of hearts you've been breaking             Your conscience affright, and your reckoning perplex,                 Whene'er an account you've been taking!"                         "I'd scarcely believe                         How deeply you grieve                 At the mischief your eyes have been making!"             Now, Nellie! Flirtation's the leaven of life;                 It lightens its doughy compactness.             Don't always the world with deception is rife                 Construe what men say with exactness!                         I pity the girl,                         In society's whirl,                 Who's troubled with matter-of-factness.             A pink is a beautiful flower in its way,                 But rosebuds and violets are charming,             Men don't wear the same boutonnire every day.                 Taste changes. Flirtation alarming!                         If e'er we complain,                         You then may refrain,                 Your eyes of their arrows disarming.             Ah, Nellie, be sensible; Pr'ythee, give heed                 To counsel a victim advances;             Your eyes, I acknowledge, will make our hearts bleed,                 Pierced through by love's magical lances.                         But better that fate                         Than in darkness to wait;                 Unsought by your mischievous glances.