Who knew the misery of an heart undone; You know it not; but, dearest boy, when man, Do not an ill because you find you can. Where is the triumph? when such things men seek, They only drive to wickedness the weak. Weak was poor Ruth, and this good man so hard, That to her weakness he had no regard; 360 But we had two days peace; he came, and then My daughter whisper’d, ‘Would there were no men! None to admire or scorn us, none to vex A simple, trusting, fond, believing sex; Who truly love the worth that men profess, And think too kindly for their happiness.’ Poor Ruth! few heroines in the tragic page Felt more than thee in thy contracted stage; Fair, fond, and virtuous, they our pity move, Impell’d by duty, agonized by love; 370 But no Mandane, who in dread has knelt On the bare boards, has greater terrors felt, Nor been by warring passions more subdued Than thou, by this man’s groveling wish pursued; Doom’d to a parent’s judgment, all unjust, } Doom’d the chance mercy of the world to trust, } Or to wed grossness and conceal disgust. } If Ruth was frail, she had a mind too nice To wed with that which she beheld as vice; To take a reptile, who, beneath a show 380 Of peevish zeal, let carnal wishes grow; Proud and yet mean, forbidding and yet full Of eager appetites, devout and dull; Waiting a legal right that he might seize His own, and his impatient spirit ease; Who would at once his pride and love indulge, His temper humour, and his spite divulge. This the poor victim saw--a second time, Sighing, she said, ‘Shall I commit the crime, And now untempted? Can the form or rite 390 Make me a wife in my Creator’s sight? Can I the words without a meaning say? Can I pronounce love, honour, or obey? And if I cannot, shall I dare to wed, And go an harlot to a loathed bed? Never, dear mother! my poor boy and I Will at the mercy of a parish lie: Reproved for wants that vices would remove, Reproach’d for vice that I could never love, Mix’d with a crew long wedded to disgrace, } 400 A Vulgar, forward, equalizing race-- } And am I doom’d to beg a dwelling in that place?’ } Such was her reasoning: many times she weigh’d The evils all, and was of each afraid; She loath’d the common board, the vulgar seat, } Where shame, and want, and vice, and sorrow meet, } Where frailty finds allies, where guilt insures retreat. } But peace again is fled; the teacher comes, And new importance, haughtier air assumes. No hapless victim of a tyrant’s love 410 More keenly felt, or more resisting strove Against her fate; she look’d on every side,