Relationships and Family

And here, poor fool! with all my lore I stand! no wiser than before. 10

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups, That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in.

When lovely woman stoops to folly, 5 And finds too late that men betray, What charm can soothe her melancholy? What art can wash her guilt away?

The only art her guilt to cover, To hide her shame from every eye, To give repentance to her lover, And wring his bosom, is—to die.

Where’er I roam, whatever realms to see, My heart untravel’d fondly turns to thee; Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain, And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.

O’er her warm cheek and rising bosom move The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care.

I’ve often wish’d that I had clear, For life, six hundred pounds a year; A handsome house to lodge a friend, A river at my garden’s end, A terrace walk, and half a rood Of land set out to plant a wood.

Ye Gods! annihilate but space and time, And make two lovers happy.

“Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed” was the ninth beatitude.

Chaste to her husband, frank to all beside, A teeming mistress, but a barren bride.

Happy the man whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air In his own ground.

Youth’s the season made for joys, Love is then our duty.

If with me you’d fondly stray. Over the hills and far away. 2

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

T’ abhor the makers, and their laws approve, Is to hate traitors and the treason love.

The soft complaining flute, In dying notes, discovers The woes of hopeless lovers.

And all to leave what with his toil he won To that unfeather’d two-legg’d thing, a son.

In friendship false, implacable in hate, Resolved to ruin or to rule the state.

Your Cleopatra; Dolabella’s Cleopatra; every man’s Cleopatra.

When I consider life, ’tis all a cheat; Yet, fool’d with hope, men favor the deceit; Trust on, and think tomorrow will repay. Tomorrow’s falser than the former day.

Ye fields of Cambridge, our dear Cambridge, say, Have ye not seen us walking every day? Was there a tree about which did not know The love betwixt us two?

A mighty pain to love it is, And ’tis a pain that pain to miss; But of all pains, the greatest pain It is to love, but love in vain.

Ah yet, ere I descend to the grave May I a small house and large garden have; And a few friends, and many books, both true, Both wise, and both delightful too!