Mothers, and guardian aunts, forbear
Your impious pains to form the fair,
Nor lay out fo much coft and art,
But to deflow'r the virgin heart;
Of ev'ry folly-foft'ring bed
By quick'ning heat of cuftom bred.
Rather than by your culture spoil'd,
Defift, and give us nature wild,
Delighted with a hoyden foul,
Which truth and innocence controul.
Coquets, leave off affected arts,
Gay fowlers at a flock of hearts;
Woodcocks to fhun your fnares have skill,
You fhew fo plain, you strive to kill.
In love the artlefs catch the game,
And they scarce mifs who never aim.
The world's great Author did create
The fex to fit the nuptial state,
And meant a blessing in a wife
To folace the fatigues of life;
And old infpired times difplay,
How wives could love, and yet obey.
Then truth and patience of controul,
And houfe-wife arts adorn'd the foul;
And charms, the gift of nature, fhone;
And jealousy, a thing unknown:
Veils were the only masks they wore ;
Novels (receipts to make a whore)
Nor ombre, nor quadrille they knew;
Nor Pam's puiffance felt at loo.
Wife men did not, to be thought gay,
Then compliment their pow'r away:
But left, by frail defires mifled,
The girls forbidden paths fhould tread,
Of ign'rance rais'd the fafe high wall
We fink haw-haws, that fhew them all.
Thus we at once folicit fense,
And charge them not to break the fence.
Now, if untir'd, confider friend,
What I avoid to gain my end.
I never am at Meeting seen,
Meeting, that region of the Spleen ;
The broken heart, the bufy fiend,
The inward call, on Spleen depend.
Law, licens'd breaking of the peace,
To which vacation is difeafe;
A gypfy diction scarce known well
By th' magi, who law-fortunes tell
I fhun; nor let it breed within
Anxiety, and that the Spleen;
Law, grown a forest, where perplex
The mazes, and the brambles vex;
Where its twelve verd❜rers every day
Are changing still the publick way;
Yet if we miss our path and err,
We grievous penalties incur ;
And wand'rers tire, and tear their skin,
And then get out where they went in.
I never game, and rarely bet,
Am loth to lend, or run in debt.
No compter-writs me agitate;
Who moralizing pass the gate,
And there mine eyes on spendthrifts turn,
Who vainly o'er their bondage mourn.
Wisdom, before beneath their care,
Pays her upbraiding visits there,
And forces folly thro' the grate
Her panegyrick to repeat.
This view, profusely when inclin'd,
Enters a caveat in the mind:
Experience join'd with common fenfe,
To mortals is a providence.
Paffion, as frequently is feen,
Subfiding settles into Spleen.
Hence, as the plague of happy life,
I run away from party-ftrife.
A prince's caufe, a church's claim,
I've known to raise a mighty flame,
And priest, as ftoker, very free
To throw in peace and charity.
That tribe, whofe practicals decree
Small-beer the deadlieft herefy;
Who, fond of pedigree, derive
From the most noted whore alive;
Who own wine's old prophetick aid,
And love the mitre Bacchus made,
Forbid the faithful to depend
On half-pint drinkers for a friend,
And in whofe gay red-letter'd face
We read good-living more than grace :
Nor they fo pure, and fo precife,
Immac❜late as their white of eyes,
Who for the spirit hug the Spleen,
Phylacter'd throughout all their mien,
Who their ill-tafted home-brew'd pray'r
To the ftate's mellow forms prefer ;
Who doctrines, as infectious, fear,
Which are not steep'd in vinegar,
And samples of heart-chefted grace
Expofe in fhew-glass of the face,
Did never me as yet provoke,
Either to honour band and cloak,
Or deck my hat with leaves of oak.
I rail not with mock-patriot grace
At folks, because they are in place;
Nor, hir'd to praise with stallion pen,
Serve the ear-lechery of men;
But to avoid religious jars
The laws are my expofitors,
Which in my doubting mind create
Conformity to church and state,
I go, pursuant to my plan,
To Mecca with the caravan,
And think it right in common sense
Both for diverfion and defence.
Reforming schemes are none of mine;
To mend the world's a vast defign:
Like theirs, who tug in little boat,
To pull to them the ship afloat,
While to defeat their labour'd end,
At once both wind and ftream contend:
Succefs herein is feldom feen,
And zeal, when baffled, turns to Spleen.
Happy the man, who, innocent,
Grieves not at ills he can't prevent;
His skiff does with the current glide,
Not puffing pull'd against the tide.
He, paddling by the fcuffling crowd,
Sees unconcern❜d life's wager row'd,
And when he can't prevent foul play,
Enjoys the folly of the fray.
By thefe reflections I repeal
Each hafty promise made in zeal.
Were bound our great light to display,
And Indian darkness drive away,
Yet none but drunken watchmen fend,
And fcoundrel link-boys for that end ;
When they cry up this holy war,
Which ev'ry christian should be for,
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