 | Eclogues and monodramas |  |
40
To her in fairness weigh it while you may.
Most free am I of narrow county pride,
That mates by pedigree, and would despise
Earth's fairest choice with no armorial stem;
But this at least allow me to premise,
As something in the scale of yes or no,
Her grade is not as yours: tho' young and fair,
The daughter of a village lawyer, still
She is not much to bring me for your wife
Without a dower to this bare manor-house,
Whose crumbling rafters chide their needy lord.
| Eclogues and monodramas | |