Classic Poem

Madam,
I cannot but congratulate
The happy Omen of your last Nights fate;
For those that wou'd live undisturb'd and free
Must never put on Hymens Livery.
Perhaps the Outside seems to promise fair
but the Liveing only Greive and anxious Care.
But once you let that Gordion Knot be ty'd
That turns the name of Virgin into Bride,
Your life's best Scene, in that fond Act forego
And run into a Labyrinth of Wo:
Whose Strange Meanders you may search about,
But never find the Clue to lead you out.
The Married Life affords but little ease,
The best of Husbands are so hard to please.
This in Wive's careful Faces you may Spell,
Tho they dissemble their Misfortunes well,
If ought can make the Ills of Marriage less,
Certainly 'tis a husbands Worthiness.
For he must needs prove a tormenting Prize,
Who is not truly virtuous, kind and wise.
Obedience do's a grating Duty prove,
If Husband's cannot teach as well as Love.
A Womans humor hardly can submit
To be a Slave to one she do's Outwit.
In Fine, no Plague so great as an ill Head,
Yet 'tis a Fate, that few young Ladyes dread.
For Loves insinuating Fire they fan
With the Idea of a God like Man:
And tho one love a Fiend, yet Love is blind
She thinks him like the Image in her Mind;
But Marriage do's these cheating thoughts remove,
And let's us see the falsity of love.
Chloris and Phillis gloryed in their Swains,
And sung their Praises to the Neighb'ring Plains
O! they were brave accomplished Saintlike Men!
Nay Gods 'till Marry'd, but proved Divels then.
Yet there are some brave Worthy men 'tis true
But they are hard to find, they are so few,
And shaded so in the Dissembling Croud,
That they are like Aeneas in a Cloud.
Sure, some resistless power attends on Love,
Else more would Venus and Diana's prove.
A Maiden Life affords the best Content,
'Tis always happy as 'tis innocent.
Clear as Olympias bright and full of ease,
And calm as Neptune in the Halcyon days
There are no sleeps broke with domestic cares,
No crying Children to distract our Pray'rs
No pangs of Child birth to extort our Tears,
No blust'ring Husbands create new Fears,
No rude upbraiding, that Defect or this,
No great Concern, whoever keeps a Miss.
No sighing, nor Affrightment at the Glass,
When it presents us with a Ruin'd Face;
But such an Object makes a Wife to Start,
And almost tempts her to adulterate Art.
Knowing a Husbands Love doth of't decay
As Youth and Beauty Fades and wares away.
And therefore Madam, be advis'd by me,
Turn, turn apostate to Loves Deity
Suppress wild Nature, if she dares Rebel,
There's no such Thing, as leading Apes in Hell.