Page:The Works of Alexander Pope (1717).djvu/301
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The WIFE of BATH.
265
He, against this, right sagely would advise,
And old examples set before my eyes;
Tell how the Roman matrons led their life,
Of Gracchus' mother, and Duilius' wife;
And chose the sermon, as beseem'd his wit,
With some grave sentence out of holy writ.
Oft' would he say, Who builds his house on sands,
Pricks his blind horse across the fallow lands,
Or lets his wife abroad with pilgrims roam,
Deserves a fools-cap and long ears at home.
All this avail'd not; for whoe'er he be
That tells my faults, I hate him mortally:
And so do numbers more, I'll boldly say,
Men, women, clergy, regular, and lay.
My spouse (who was, you know, to learning bred)
A certain treatise oft' at evening read,
Where divers authors (whom the dev'l confound
For all their lies) were in one volume bound.
Valerius, whole; and of St. Jerome, part;
Chrysippus and Tertullian; Ovid's Art;
And old examples set before my eyes;
Tell how the Roman matrons led their life,
Of Gracchus' mother, and Duilius' wife;
And chose the sermon, as beseem'd his wit,
With some grave sentence out of holy writ.
Oft' would he say, Who builds his house on sands,
Pricks his blind horse across the fallow lands,
Or lets his wife abroad with pilgrims roam,
Deserves a fools-cap and long ears at home.
All this avail'd not; for whoe'er he be
That tells my faults, I hate him mortally:
And so do numbers more, I'll boldly say,
Men, women, clergy, regular, and lay.
My spouse (who was, you know, to learning bred)
A certain treatise oft' at evening read,
Where divers authors (whom the dev'l confound
For all their lies) were in one volume bound.
Valerius, whole; and of St. Jerome, part;
Chrysippus and Tertullian; Ovid's Art;
Solomon's