I leave SOPHIA; it would please me well, Before we part, on so much worth to dwell. ’Tis said of one who lived in times of strife, There was no boyhood in his busy life; Born to do all that mortal being can, The thinking child became at once the man; So this fair girl in early youth was led, By reasons strong in early youth, to wed. In her new state her prudence was her guide, And of experience well the place supplied; 10 With life’s important business full in view, She had no time for its amusements too; She had no practised look man’s heart t’ allure, No frown to kill him, and no smile to cure; No art coquettish, nothing of the prude; She was with strong yet simple sense endued, Intent on duties, and resolved to shun Nothing that ought to be, and could be, done. A Captain’s wife, with him she long sustain’d The toil of war, and in a camp remain’d; 20 Her husband wounded, with a child in arms, She nurst them both, unheeded all alarms; All useless terror in her soul supprest— None could discern in hers a troubled breast. Her wounded soldier is a prisoner made— She hears, prepares, and is at once convey’d Through hostile ranks; with air sedate she goes, And makes admiring friends of wondering foes. Her dying husband to her care confides } Affairs perplex’d; she reasons, she decides; 30} If intricate her way, her walk discretion guides. } Home to her country she returns alone, Her health decay’d, her child, her husband, gone; There she in peace reposes, there resumes Her female duties, and in rest reblooms; She is not one at common ills to droop, Nor to vain murmuring will her spirit stoop. I leave her thus: her fortieth year is nigh, She will not for another captain sigh; Will not a young and gay lieutenant take, 40 Because ’tis pretty to reform a rake; Yet she again may plight her widow’d hand, Should love invite, or charity demand, And make her days, although for duty’s sake, As sad as folly and mischance can make. II.