Page:The Works of Alexander Pope (1717).djvu/246
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210
JANUARY and MAY.
This, Sir, affects not you, whose ev'ry word
Is weigh'd with judgment, and befits a Lord:
Your will is mine; and is (I will maintain)
Pleasing to God, and should be so to Man;
At least, your courage all the world must praise,
Who dare to wed in your declining days.
Indulge the vigour of your mounting blood,
And let grey fools be indolently good,
Who past all pleasure, damn the joys of sense,
With rev'rend dulness, and grave impotence.
Justin, who silent fate, and heard the man,
Thus, with a philosophic frown, began.
A heathen author, of the first degree,
(Who, tho' not Faith, had Sense as well as we)
Bids us be certain our concerns to trust
To those of gen'rous principles, and just.
The venture's greater, I'll presume to say,
To give your person, than your goods away:
And therefore, Sir, as you regard your rest,
First learn your Lady's qualities at least:
Is weigh'd with judgment, and befits a Lord:
Your will is mine; and is (I will maintain)
Pleasing to God, and should be so to Man;
At least, your courage all the world must praise,
Who dare to wed in your declining days.
Indulge the vigour of your mounting blood,
And let grey fools be indolently good,
Who past all pleasure, damn the joys of sense,
With rev'rend dulness, and grave impotence.
Justin, who silent fate, and heard the man,
Thus, with a philosophic frown, began.
A heathen author, of the first degree,
(Who, tho' not Faith, had Sense as well as we)
Bids us be certain our concerns to trust
To those of gen'rous principles, and just.
The venture's greater, I'll presume to say,
To give your person, than your goods away:
And therefore, Sir, as you regard your rest,
First learn your Lady's qualities at least:
Whether