Page:The Works of Alexander Pope (1717).djvu/298
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The WIFE of BATH.
Visits to ev'ry Church we daily paid,
And march'd in ev'ry holy Masquerade,
The stations duly, and the vigils kept;
Not much we fasted, but scarce ever slept.
At sermons too I shone in scarlet gay;
The wasting moth ne'er spoil'd my best array;
The cause was this; I wore it ev'ry day.
'Twas when fresh May her early blossoms yields,
The clerk and I were walking in the fields.
We grew so intimate, I can't tell how,
I pawn'd my honour, and engag'd my vow,
If e'er I laid my husband in his urn,
That he, and only he, should serve my turn.
We strait struck hands; the bargain was agreed;
I still have shifts against a time of need:
The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole,
Can never be a mouse of any soul.
I vow'd, I scarce could sleep since first I knew him,
And durst be sworn he had bewitch'd me to him:
And march'd in ev'ry holy Masquerade,
The stations duly, and the vigils kept;
Not much we fasted, but scarce ever slept.
At sermons too I shone in scarlet gay;
The wasting moth ne'er spoil'd my best array;
The cause was this; I wore it ev'ry day.
'Twas when fresh May her early blossoms yields,
The clerk and I were walking in the fields.
We grew so intimate, I can't tell how,
I pawn'd my honour, and engag'd my vow,
If e'er I laid my husband in his urn,
That he, and only he, should serve my turn.
We strait struck hands; the bargain was agreed;
I still have shifts against a time of need:
The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole,
Can never be a mouse of any soul.
I vow'd, I scarce could sleep since first I knew him,
And durst be sworn he had bewitch'd me to him:
If