No, Make Me Mistress To The Man

What So Pure, Which Envious Tongues Will Spare? Some Wicked Wits Have Libell'd All The Fair, With Matchless Impudence They Style A Wife, The Dear-bought Curse, And Lawful Plague Of Life; A Bosom Serpent, A Domestic Evil, A Night Invasion, And A Mid-day Devil; Let Not The Wise These Sland'rous Words Regard, But Curse The Bones Of Ev'ry Living Bard.

Chaos Of Thought And Passion, All Confused; Still By Himself Abused Or Disabused; Created Half To Rise, And Half To Fall; Great Lord Of All Things, Yet A Prey To All; Sole Judge Of Truth, In Endless Error Hurled,- The Glory, Jest, And Riddle Of The World.

The Lights And Shades, Whose Well-accorded Strife Gives All The Strength And Color Of Our Life.

Oh, Sons Of Earth! Attempt Ye Still To Rise. By Mountains Pil'd On Mountains To The Skies? Heav'n Still With Laughter The Vain Toil Surveys, And Buries Madmen In The Heaps They Raise.

Virtue, I Grant You, Is An Empty Boast; But Shall The Dignity Of Vice Be Lost?