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The Ephesian Matron

A Comic Serenata, After the Manner of the Italian
  
  

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SCENE VI.
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15

SCENE VI.

Matron, Maid.
MAID.
A sweeter man I never saw!
He might give woman-kind the law.
He talks and moves with so much grace!—
And then he has a charming face.

MATRON.
Dear girl, this is a shocking place;
So dark and dismal—then the smell
Is really overcoming.

MAID.
Well.
Why don't you leave it?

MATRON.
Leave!—who, I!
Have I not sworn that here I'll die?


16

MAID.
Such oaths are better broke than kept;
Enough you've sigh'd, enough you've wept;
With this young fellow quit the cave;
He's worth three dead men.

MATRON.
Sure you rave.
He wou'd not yield his youth to chear
A weeping widow.

MAID.
Never fear.

MATRON.
And shou'd I lightly seem inclined,
What wou'd the world say?

MAID.
Never mind.