Poems and Plays :: :: University of Virginia Library

The rights of women, in this cens'ring age,
Have yet not been asserted on the stage:
For one great branch of our defrauded right,
Where hangs the glowing fruit of home-delight,
I now appear, to move a new decree,
And plead the female cause without a fee.

Two scions on one plant, will not now bear
A chaste allusion to the wedded pair.
Behold! unfeeling Dissipation rends
Wide from each other the connubial friends
The travelling spray by whim's still varying lot
Is seen ingrafted on some distant spot,
While the poor widow'd sprig appears to moan
Left to the blast unpitied and alone:
But our new code forbids the youth to roam,
And calls with dove-like voice, the wanderer home;
We therefore hope our mates wo'nt think us rude,
If from our plan all grafting we exclude.

Do some now present daringly maintain,
That roguish wives oft snap the wedlock chain?
What? if the rover will not share his life
With that domestic fixture called a wife,
Should the wild truant man forsake the scene,
Must she be stil'd an abdicating quean?
If from their residence th' incumbents stray,
Can it be said the living runs away?

Then let the wives for residence contend—
To this one point let our exertions bend;
And if deserted we'll no more endure it,
But in their absence shall appoint a curate.

The laws of wedlock are the laws of rhyme,
A faithful couplet, in accordant chime:
If the first line should not exactly flow
In perfect symmetry with that below,
Ah! then we look for harmony in vain,
And savage Dissonance deforms the strain.
Some modern dames, indeed, have thought it sweeter
To stretch the couplet to a triplet metre;
Our code disclaims this license of the time,
Firm for one couplet and one echoing rhyme.

Long time entangled in the wedded noose,
The city husband and his cackling goose,
Half-tir'd, half-pleas'd, without delight or strife,
Still, side by side, they waddle on thro' life:

This drowsy pair we hold not up to view
As a complete example to pursue:
We wish the men would rather look on high,
And note the lark that warbles to the sky.
Nature to this sweet bird alone has given,
To wake his carol at the gate of heav'n;
Yet, 'midst the pride of his extatic strain,
His faithful breast recals the humble plain,
And sinking from the splendor of the skies,
He joyous to his little mansion flies;
'Lights with gay pinion on his low-built nest,
Where all his pleasures, all his wishes rest.

Say, does our code, too selfishly inclin'd,
Allow no absence of the length'ning kind?
Yes! long privations we are doom'd to bear,
And for our husbands shed the lonely tear;
While for our Country's cause they plough the main,
To crush the perfidy of France and Spain!

When the rude voice of battle shall be mute,
And they return from Valour's proud pursuit;
The English wife a garland shall prepare,
Breathing the perfume of the summer air.
Unlike those high, too-fashionable bays,
Which husbands wear in our degenerate days;
But gay with roses and with heart's-ease join'd—
Those emblems of the pure, delighted mind.