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Appears a goddess till enjoy'd ;

But Birds, and Men, and Gods, are cloy'd.

Was Hercules one Woman's Man?

Or Jove for ever Leda's Swan ?

Ah! madam, cease to be mistaken,

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Few marry'd fowl peck Dunmow-bacon.
Variety alone gives joy,

The sweetest meats the fooneft cloy.
What Sparrow-dame, what Dove alive,
Though Venus fhould the chariot drive,
But would accufe the harnefs weight,
If always coupled to one mate;
And often with the fetter broke?
'Tis freedom but to change the yoke.
T. Impious to wifh to wed again,

Ere death diffolv'd the former chain !

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S. Spare your remark, and hear the reft; She brought me fons; but (Jove be bleft!) She dy'd in child-bed on the neft.

Well, reft her bones! quoth I, fhe 's gone;

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But muft I therefore lie alone?

What! am I to her memory ty'd ?

Muft I not live, becaufe fhe dy'd?

And thus I logically faid

('Tis good to have a reasoning head !)
Is this my Wife? Probatur, not;
For death diffolv'd the marriage-knot:
She was, concedo, during life;

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But, is a piece of clay a Wife?

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Again; if not, a Wife, d'ye fee,
Why then no kin at all to me :
And he, who general tears can fhed
For folks that happen to be dead,
May e'en with equal justice mourn
For those who never yet were born.

T. Those points indeed you quaintly prove :
But Logick is no friend to Love.

S. My children then were just pen-feather'd :
Some little corn for them I gather'd,
And fent them to my spouse's mother;
So left that brood, to get another:
And, as old Harry whilom faid,
Reflecting on Anne Boleyn dead,
Cocksbones! I now again do stand
The jollyeft bachelor i' th' land.

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T. Ah me! my joys, my hopes, are fled;
My firft, my only Love, is dead :

With endless grief let me bemoan
Columbo's lofs !

S.

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But, when the honey-moon was past,

The following nights were foon o'ercast;

She

She kept her own, could plead the law,
And quarrel for a barley-straw:
Both, you may judge, became less kind,
As more we knew each other's mind:
She foon grew fullen; I, hard-hearted;
We scolded, hated, fought, and parted.
To London, bleffed town! I went;
She boarded at a farm in Kent.
A Magpye from the country fled,
And kindly told me she was dead :
I prun'd my feathers, cock'd my
And fet my heart again to sale.

tail,

My fourth, a mere coquette, or fuch

I thought her; nor avails it much,

If true or false; our troubles fpring
More from the fancy than the thing.
Two ftaring horns, I often faid,
But ill become a Sparrow's head;
But then, to fet that balance even,
Your cuckold Sparrow goes to Heaven.
The thing you fear, fuppofe it done,
If you enquire, you make it known.
Whilft at the root your horns are fore,
The more you fcratch, they ache the more.
But turn the tables, and reflect,

All may not be, that

you fufpect:

By the mind's eye, the horns we mean

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Are only in ideas feen;

'Tis from the infide of the head

Their branches fhoot, their antlers spread ;

Fruitful

Fruitful fufpicions often bear 'em,

fear 'em.

You feel them from the time you
Cuckoo Cuckoo! that echoed word,
Offends the ear of vulgar bird ;
But those of finer taste have found,
'There's nothing in 't befide the found;
Preferment always waits on horns,
And houfhold peace the gift adorns ;
This way, or that, let factions tend,
The fpark is ftill the cuckold's friend ;
This way, or that, let madam roam,
Well pleas'd and quiet fhe comes home.
Now weigh the pleasure with the pain,
The plus and minus, loss and gain,
And what La Fontaine laughing says,
Is ferious truth, in fuch a cafe ;
"Who flights the evil, finds it leaft;

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"And who does nothing, does the best."

I never ftrove to rule the roast,

She ne'er refus'd to pledge my toast :

In vifits if we chanc'd to meet,

I feem'd obliging, she discreet;
We neither much carefs'd nor ftrove,

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The Three kind Sifters broke the chain,
She dy'd, I mourn'd, and woo'd again.

T. Let me with jufter grief deplore
My dear Columbo, now no more;

Let me with conftant tears bewail

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S. Your forrow does but spoil my tale.

My fifth, the prov'd a jealous wife,

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Lord fhield us all from fuch a life!

'Twas doubt, complaint, reply, chit-chat, "Twas this, to-day; to-morrow, that.

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Sometimes, forfooth, upon the brook
I kept a Mifs; an honest Rook
Told it a Snipe, who told a Steer,
Who told it those who told it her.
One day a Linnet and a Lark
Had met me ftrolling in the dark;
The next a Woodcock and an Owl,
Quick-fighted, grave, and fober fowl,
Would on their corporal oath alledge,
I kifs'd a Hen behind the hedge.
Well; madam Turtle, to be brief,
(Repeating but renews our grief)
As once the watch'd me from a rail,
(Poor foul!) her footing chanc'd to fail,
And down the fell, and broke her hip;
The fever came, and then the pip:
Death did the only cure apply;

She was at quiet, so was I.

T. Could Love unmov'd these changes view?

His forrows, as his joys, are true.

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S. My

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