Wine may indeed excite the meekest dame;
But keen Xantippe, scorning borrow'd flame,
Can vent her thunders, and her lightnings play,
O'er cooling gruel, and composing tea:
Nor rests by night, but, more sincere than nice,
She shakes the curtains with her kind advice:
Doubly, like echo, sound is her delight,
And the last word is her eternal right.
Is't not enough, plagues, wars, and famines rise
To lash our crimes, but must our wives be wise?
Famine, plague, war, and an unnumber'd throng
Of guilt-avenging ills, to man belong:
What black, what ceaseless cares besiege our state!
What strokes we feel from fancy, and from fate!
If fate forbears us, fancy strikes the blow;
We make misfortune; suicides in woe.
Superfluous aid! unnecessary skill!
Is nature backward to torment, or kill?
How oft the noon, how oft the midnight, bell,
(That iron tongue of death!) with solemn knell,
On folly's errands as we vainly roam,
Knocks at our hearts, and finds our thoughts from home!
Men drop so fast, ere life's mid stage we tread,
Few know so many friends alive, as dead.
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