FullReads

BEHOLD our widow list’ning to his praise,
Incipient fuel Cupid’s flame to raise;
Behold her, even glad to view the wight,
Whose well tim’d flatt’ry filled her with delight

AT length, to eat he on the fair prevailed,
And pleased her better than the dead bewailed.
So well he managed, that she changed her plan,
And, by degrees, to love him fondly ‘gan.
The son of Mars a darling husband grew,
While yet her former dear was full in view.

MEANTIME the corpse, that long in chains had swung,
By thieves was carried off from where it hung.
The noise was heard, and thither ran our wight;
But vain his efforts:–they were out of sight;
Confused, distressed, he sought again the tomb,
To tell his grief and settle, ‘mid the gloom,
How best to act, and where his head to hide,
Since hang he must, the laws would now decide.

THE slave replied, your gibbet-thief, you say,
Some lurking rogues this night have borne away:
The law, it seems, will ne’er accord you grace
The corpse that’s here, let’s set in t’other’s place:
The passers-by the change will never tell
The lady gave consent, and all was well.

O FICKLE females, ever you’re the same;
A woman’s a woman, both in mind and name
Some fair we find, and some unlike the dove,
But CONSTANCY’S the highest charm of love.

YE prudes, for ever doubt of full success;
Don’t boast at all: too much you may profess,
How good soever your design may be,
Not less is ours, you easily may see;
The MATRON’S tale is not beyond belief:
To entertain, our object is in chief.

THE widow’s only errors were her cries;
And mad design her life to sacrifice;
For, merely setting husband-dead in place
of one of this patibulary race,
Was surely not a fault so very grave:
Her lover’s life was what she sought to save.

A LIVING drum-boy, truly be it said,
Is better far, than any monarch dead.