Repell'd by this, the gather'd rain
Of tears beats back to earth again;
In t' other the collected sound
Of groans, when once receiv'd, is drown'd.
'Tis therefore vain one hour to grieve
What time itself can ne'er retrieve.
By nature soft, I know a dove
Can never live without her love;
Then quit this flame, and light another,
Dame, I advise you like a brother.
T. What, I to make a second choice!
In other nuptials to rejoice!
S. Why not, my bird?
-No, Sparrow, no;
Let me indulge my pleasing woe:
Thus sighing, cooing, ease my pain,
But never wish nor love again :
Distress'd for ever let me moan
My dear Columbo, dead and gone.
S. Our winged friends, through all the grove, Contemn thy mad excess of love:
I tell thee, Dame, the other day
I met a parrot and a jay,
Who mock'd thee in their mimic tone,
And wept Columbo, dead and gone.
7. Whate'er the jay or parrot said,
My hopes are lost, my joys are fled,
And I for ever must deplore
Columbo, dead and gone.-S. Encore!
For shame, forsake this Bion-style;
We'll talk an hour, and walk a mile.
Does it with sense or health agree,
To sit thus moping on a tree?
To throw away a widow's life,
When you again may be a wife;
Come on, I'll tell you my amours;
Who knows but they may influence your's?
Example draws where precept fails,
And sermons are less read than tales.
T. Sparrow, I take thee for my friend;
As such will hear thee: I descend;
Hop on and talk; but, honest bird,
Take care that no immodest word
May venture to offend my ear.
S. Too saint-like Turtle, never fear.
By method things are best discuss'd,
Begin we then with wife the first:
A handsome, senseless, awkward fool,
Who would not yield, and could not rule;
Her actions did her charms disgrace,
And still her tongue talk'd of her face;
Count me the leaves on yonder tree,
So many different wills had she,
And, like the leaves, as chance inclin❜d,
Those wills were chang'd with every wind:
She courted the beau-monde to-night,
L'assemblee her supreme delight;
The next she sat immur'd, unseen,
And in full health enjoy'd the spleen;
She censur'd that, she alter'd this,
And with great care set all amiss;
She now could chide, now laugh, now cry,
Now sing, now pout, all God knows why:
Short was her reign, she cough'd and died;-
Proceed we to my second bride:
Well born she was, genteely bred,
And buxom both at board and bed;
Glad to oblige, and pleas'd to please,
And, as Tom Southern wisely says,
'No other fault had she in life,
But only that she was my wife.'*
O widow Turtle! every she,
(So Nature's pleasure does decree)
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,
Few married fowl peck Dunmow-bacon.
Variety alone gives joy;
The sweetest meats the soonest cloy.
What Sparrow-dame, what Dove alive,
Though Venus should the chariot drive,
But would accuse the harness' weight,
If always coupled to one mate;
And often wish the fetter broke?
"Tis freedom but to change the yoke. T. Impious, to wish to wed again, Ere death dissolv'd the former chain!
S. Spare your remark, and hear the rest, She brought me sons, but, Jove be bless'd, She died in childbed, on the nest.
Well, rest her bones, quoth I, she's gone;
But must I therefore lie alone?
What, am I to her memory tied?
Must I not live, because she died?
And thus I logically said,
('Tis good to have a reasoning head)
Is this my wife? probatur, not;
For death dissolv'd the marriage-knot:
She was, concedo, during life;
But is a piece of clay a wife?
* See the Wife's Excuse, a comedy.
Again, if not wife, do ye see,
Why then no kin at all to me;
And he who general tears can shed
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 logic is no friend to love.
S. My children then were just pen-feather'd; Some little corn for them I gather'd, And sent them to my spouse's mother, So left that brood to get another; And as old Harry whilom said, Reflecting on Anne Boleyn dead, 'Cocksbones, I now again do stand The jolliest bachelor i' th' land.'
T. Ah me! my joys, my hopes, are fled;
My first, my only love, is dead;
With endless grief let me bemoan
Columbo's loss-
S.-Let me go on.
As yet my fortune was but narrow;
I woo'd my cousin, Philly Sparrow,
O' th' elder house of Chirping-End,
From whence the younger branch descend.
Well seated in a field of pease
She liv'd, extremely at her ease;
But when the honey-moon was pass'd,
The following nights were soon o'ercast;
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 soon grew sullen; I, hard-hearted;
We scolded, hated, fought, and parted,
To London, blessed town! I went;
She boarded at a farm in Kent:
A magpie from the country fled,
And kindly told me-she was dead:
I prun'd my feathers, cock'd my tail,
And set my heart again to sale.
My fourth, a mere coquette, or such
I thought her; nor avails it much,
If true or false: our troubles spring
More from the fancy than the thing.
Two staring horns, I often said,
But ill become a Sparrow's head;
But then to set that balance even,
Your cuckold-Sparrow goes to heaven.
The thing you fear, suppose it done,
If you inquire, you make it known.
Whilst at the root your horns are sore,
The more you scratch they ache the more.
But turn the tables and reflect,
All may not be that you suspect:
By the mind's eye, the horns we mean
Are only in ideas seen;
'Tis from the inside of the head
Their branches shoot, their antlers spread;
Fruitful suspicions often bear them;
You feel them from the time you fear them.
Cuckoo! Cuckoo! that echo'd word
Offends the ear of vulgar bird;
But those of finer taste have found
There's nothing in't beside the sound.
Preferment always waits on horns,
And household peace the gift adorns :
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