No Fault In Women
by
No fault in women, to refuse
The offer which they most would chuse.
–No fault: in women, to confess
How tedious they are in their dress;
–No fault in women, to lay on
The tincture of vermilion;
And there to give the cheek a dye
Of white, where Nature doth deny.
–No fault in women, to make show
Of largeness, when they’re nothing so;
When, true it is, the outside swells
With inward buckram, little else.
–No fault in women, though they be
But seldom from suspicion free;
–No fault in womankind at all,
If they but slip, and never fall.