Discovering poetry: Dryden’s earthy translation of Lucretius

If cat-eyed, then a Pallas is their love;
If freckled, she’s a party-coloured dove;
If little, then she’s life and soul all o’er;
An Amazon, the large two-handed whore.
She stammers; oh, what grace in lisping lies!
If she says nothing, to be sure she’s wise.
If shrill, and with a voice to drown a quire,
Sharp-witted she must be, and full of fire;
The lean, consumptive wench, with coughs decayed,
Is called a pretty, tight, and slender maid;
The o’ergrown, a goodly Ceres is exprest,
A bed-fellow for Bacchus at the least;
Flat-nose the name of Satyr never misses,
And hanging blobber lips but pout for kisses.
The task were endless all the rest to trace;
Yet grant she were a Venus for her face
And shape, yet others equal beauty share,
And time was you could live without the fair;
She does no more, in that for which you woo,
Than homelier women full as well can do.