MARTIA L. EPIGRAM. PRYTHEE die and set me free, Or elfe be Kind and brisk, and gay like me; 'Tis not cheeks, nor lips, nor eyes, That I prize, Quick conceits, or sharp replies, If wife thou wilt appear and knowing, Why fo many bolts and locks, Coats and fmocks, And thofe drawers with a pox ? I could wish, could nature make it, Nakedness, nakedness Itfelf were naked. But if a mistress I must have, Wife and grave, Let her fo herself behave All the day long Susan civil, Pap by night, pap by night, FRIENDSHIP and SINGLE LIFE, AGAINST LOVE and MARRIAGE. LOVE! in what poifon is thy dart Dipt, when it makes a bleeding heart? It is not thou, but we are blind, Love to our citadel reforts, What fubtle witchcraft man constrains, To change his pleasure into pains, And all his freedom into chains? May not a prison, or a grave, Like wedlock, honour's title have? That word makes free-born man a slave. How How happy he that loves not, lives! How unconcern'd in things to come! Secure from low and private ends, Danger and honour are his joy; Then he lays-by the public care, Nor fire, nor foe, nor fate, nor night, Though ftill his foes in number grew, But death in all her forms appears, For whom he leads, and whom he bears. *His father and fon. E 2 Love, making all things elfe his foes, This was the cause the poets fung, Her father, not her fon, art thou: Love is as old as place or time; Grandfire of father Adam's crime. Well may'st thou keep this world in awe; 'Tis he commands the powers above; Phoebus refigns his darts, and Jove His thunder, to the God of Love. To him doth his feign'd mother yield; He clips Hope's wings, whofe airy blifs But less than nothing, if it mifs. When When matches Love alone projects, The cause transcending the effects, That wild-fire's quench'd in cold neglects. Whilft those conjunctions prove the best, Though Solomon with a thousand wives, Old Rome of children took no care, Love, drowsy days and stormy nights Well-chofen friendship, the most noble But when th' unlucky knot we tie, The wolf, the lion, and the bear, |