The virtues that endear and sweeten life,
And form that soft companion, call'd a wife;
Demand my song. Thou who didst first inspire
The tender theme, to thee I tune the lyre.
Hail, lovely woman! nature's blessing, hail!
Whose charms o'er all the powers of man prevail:
Thou healing balm of life, which bounteous heaven,
To pour on all our woes has kindly given!
What were mankind without thee? or what joy,
Like thy soft converse, can his hours employ?
The dry, dull, drowsy bachelor surveys,
Alternate, joyless nights and lonesome days:
No tender transports wake his sullen breast,
No soft endearments lull his cares to rest:
Stupidly free from nature's tenderest ties,
Lost in his own sad self he lives and dies.
Not so the man, to whom indulgent heaven
That tender bosom-friend, a wife, has given:
Him, blest in her kind arms, no fears dismay,
No secret checks of guilt his mind allay:
No husband wrong'd, no virgin honour spoil'd,
No anxious parent weeps his ruin'd child!
No fell disease, no false embrace is here,
The joys are safe, the raptures are sincere.
Does fortune smile? How grateful must it prove
To tread life's pleasing round with one we love!
Or does she frown? The fair with softening art,
Will sooth our woes, or bear a willing part.
“But are all women of the soothing kind?
“In choosing wives no hazard shall we find?
“Will spleen, nor vapours, pride, nor prate molest?
“And is all fear of cuckledom a jest?”
Grant some are bad: yet surely some remain,
Good without show, and lovely without stain;
Warm without lewdness; virtuous without pride;
Content to follow, yet with sense to guide.
Such is Fidelia, fairest, fondest wife;
Observe the picture, for I draw from life.
Near that fam'd hill, from whose enchanting brow
Such various seenes enrich the vales below;
While gentle Thames, meandering glides along,
Meads, flocks, and groves, and rising towers among,
Fidelia dwelt: fair as the fairest seene
Of smiling nature, when the sky's serene.
Full sixteen summers had adorn'd her face,
Warm'd every sense, and waken'd every grace:
Her eye look'd sweetness, gently heav'd her breast,
Her shape, her motion, graceful case exprest.
And to this fair, this finish'd form were join'd
The softest passions, and the purest mind.
And form that soft companion, call'd a wife;
Demand my song. Thou who didst first inspire
The tender theme, to thee I tune the lyre.
Hail, lovely woman! nature's blessing, hail!
Whose charms o'er all the powers of man prevail:
Thou healing balm of life, which bounteous heaven,
To pour on all our woes has kindly given!
What were mankind without thee? or what joy,
Like thy soft converse, can his hours employ?
The dry, dull, drowsy bachelor surveys,
Alternate, joyless nights and lonesome days:
No tender transports wake his sullen breast,
No soft endearments lull his cares to rest:
Stupidly free from nature's tenderest ties,
Lost in his own sad self he lives and dies.
Not so the man, to whom indulgent heaven
That tender bosom-friend, a wife, has given:
Him, blest in her kind arms, no fears dismay,
No secret checks of guilt his mind allay:
No husband wrong'd, no virgin honour spoil'd,
No anxious parent weeps his ruin'd child!
No fell disease, no false embrace is here,
The joys are safe, the raptures are sincere.
Does fortune smile? How grateful must it prove
To tread life's pleasing round with one we love!
Or does she frown? The fair with softening art,
Will sooth our woes, or bear a willing part.
“But are all women of the soothing kind?
“In choosing wives no hazard shall we find?
“Will spleen, nor vapours, pride, nor prate molest?
“And is all fear of cuckledom a jest?”
Grant some are bad: yet surely some remain,
Good without show, and lovely without stain;
Warm without lewdness; virtuous without pride;
Content to follow, yet with sense to guide.
Such is Fidelia, fairest, fondest wife;
Observe the picture, for I draw from life.
Near that fam'd hill, from whose enchanting brow
Such various seenes enrich the vales below;
While gentle Thames, meandering glides along,
Meads, flocks, and groves, and rising towers among,
Fidelia dwelt: fair as the fairest seene
Of smiling nature, when the sky's serene.
Full sixteen summers had adorn'd her face,
Warm'd every sense, and waken'd every grace:
Her eye look'd sweetness, gently heav'd her breast,
Her shape, her motion, graceful case exprest.
And to this fair, this finish'd form were join'd
The softest passions, and the purest mind.