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Wou'd you enjoy foft nights and folid dinners?
Faith, gallants, board with faints, and bed with finners.
Well, if our Author in the Wife offends,
He has a Hufband that will make amends:

He draws him gentle, tender, and forgiving,
And fure fuch kind good creatures may be living.

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In days of old, they pardon'd breach of vows,
Stern Cato's felf was no relentless spouse:

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Plu-Plutarch, what's his name, that writes his life?

Tells us, that Cato dearly lov'd his wife :

Yet if a friend, a night or fo, should need her,
He'd recommend her, as a special breeder.
To lend a wife, few here would scruple make,
But pray which of you all would take her back?
Tho' with the Stoic Chief our ftage may ring,
The Stoic Husband was the glorious thing.
The man had courage, was a fage, 'tis true,
And lov'd his country-but what's that to you?
Those ftrange examples ne'er were made to fit ye,
But the kind cuckold might inftruct the City:
There, many an honeft man may copy Cato,
Who ne'er faw naked sword, or look'd in Plato.
If, after all, you think it a disgrace,
That Edward's Mifs thus perks it in your face;
To fee a piece of failing flesh and blood,
In all the reft fo impudently good;

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Faith, let the modeft Matrons of the town,

Come here in crouds, and stare the ftrumpet down.

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SAPPHO

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SAY, lovely youth, that do’ft

AY, lovely youth, that do'ft my heart command,
Can Phaon's eyes forget his Sappho's hand?
Muft then her Name the wretched writer prove,
To thy remembrance loft, as to thy love?
Afk not the caufe that I new numbers chufe,
The Lute neglected, and the Lyric mufe;
Love taught my tears in fadder notes to flow,
And tun'd my heart to Elegies of woe.
I burn, I burn, as when thro' ripen'd corn
By driving winds the spreading flames are born!
Phaon to Ætna's fcorching fields retires,

While I confume with more than Etna's fires!
No more my foul a charm in mufic finds,
Mufic has charms alone for peaceful minds.
Soft fcenes of folitude no more can please,
Love enters there, and I'm my own disease.
No more the Lesbian dames my paffion move,
Once the dear objects of my guilty love;
All other loves are loft in only thine,

Ah youth ungrateful to a flame like mine!

N.

Whom would not all thofe blooming charms furprize,
Those heav'nly looks, and dear, deluding eyes?

The harp and bow would you like Phoebus bear,
A brighter Phoebus, Phaon might appear;

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Would you with ivy wreath your flowing hair,
Not Bacchus' felf with Phaon could compare :
Yet Phoebus lov'd, and Bacchus felt the flame,
One Daphne warm'd, and one the Cretan dame,
Nymphs that in verse no more could rival me,
Than ev'n thofe Gods contend in charms with thee.
The Mufes teach me all their fofteft lays,

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And the wide world refounds with Sappho's praise.
Tho' great Alcæus more fublimely fings,

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And trikes with bolder rage the founding ftrings,
No lefs renown attends the moving lyre,
Which Venus tunes, and all her loves infpire.
To me what nature has in charms deny'd,
Is well by wit's more lasting charms supply'd.
Tho' fhort my ftature, yet my name extends
To heav'n itself, and earth's remotest ends.
Brown as I am, an Ethiopian dame
Infpir'd young Perfeus with a gen'rous flame.
Turtles and doves of diff'ring hues, unite,
And gloffy jett is pair'd with fhining white.
If to no charms thou wilt thy heart refign,
But fuch as merit, fuch as equal thine,
By none alas! by none thou can't be mov'd,
Phaon alone by Phaon must be lov'd!
Yet once thy Sappho could thy cares employ,
Once in her arms you center'd all your joy :
Still all thofe joys to my remembrance move,
For oh! how vaft a memory has Love?
My mufic, then, you could for ever hear,
And all my words were mufic to your ear.
You ftop'd with kiffes my inchanting tongue,
And found my kiffes fweeter than my fong.
In all I pleas'd, but moft in what was beft;

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And the laft joy was dearer than the reft.

Then with each word, each glance, each motion fir'd,

You ftill enjoy'd, and yet you ftill defir'd,

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Till all diffolving in the trance we lay,

And in tumultuous raptures dy'd away.

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