Watching his eye, and waiting on his will; Simple yet smart her dress, her manners meek, Her smiles spoke for her, she would seldom speak; But watch’d each look, each meaning to detect, And (pleas’d with notice) felt for all neglect. With her lived Gwyn a sweet harmonious life, Who, forms excepted, was a charming wife. The wives indeed, so made by vulgar law, 230 Affected scorn, and censured what they saw; And what they saw not, fancied; said ’twas sin, And took no notice of the wife of Gwyn. But he despised their rudeness, and would prove Theirs was compulsion and distrust, not love; “Fools as they were! could they conceive that rings And parsons’ blessings were substantial things?” They answer’d “Yes;” while he contemptuous spoke Of the low notions held by simple folk; Yet, strange that anger in a man so wise } 240 Should from the notions of these fools arise; } Can they so vex us, whom we so despise? } Brave as he was, our hero felt a dread Lest those who saw him kind should think him led; If to his bosom fear a visit paid, It was, lest he should be supposed afraid. Hence sprang his orders; not that he desired The things when done: obedience he required; And thus, to prove his absolute command, Ruled every heart, and moved each subject hand; 250 Assent he ask’d for every word and whim, To prove that _he alone was king of him_. The still Rebecca, who her station knew, With ease resign’d the honours not her due; Well pleased, she saw that men her board would grace, And wish’d not there to see a female face; When by her lover she his spouse was styled, Polite she thought it, and demurely smiled; But when he wanted wives and maidens round So to regard her, she grew grave, and frown’d; 260 And sometimes whisper’d--“Why should you respect These people’s notions, yet their forms reject?” Gwyn, though from marriage bond and fetter free, Still felt abridgment in his liberty; Something of hesitation he betray’d, And in her presence thought of what he said. Thus fair Rebecca, though she walk’d astray, His creed rejecting, judged it right to pray; To be at church, to sit with serious looks, To read her Bible and her Sunday-books. 270 She hated all those new and daring themes, And call’d his free conjectures “devil’s dreams;” She honour’d still the priesthood in her fall, And claim’d respect and reverence for them all; Call’d them “of sin’s destructive power the foes, And not such blockheads as he might suppose.” Gwyn to his friends would smile, and sometimes say, “’Tis a kind fool, why vex her in her way?” Her way she took, and still had more in view, For she contrived that he should take it too. 280