NOT far from Town, and in a rural place, Where Nature shone with ev’ry pleasing grace; Where rising hills gave rapture to the sight, With flocks, whose fleeces were all snowy white; Beneath, where lawns extended wide around, And silver murm’ring rivulets were found; There in a humble, tho’ not mean, estate, I drew my being, as ordain’d by fate. My parents, tho’ not born to wealth and pride, The markets still with various things supply’d; Industrious both, they happ’ly found the gains Were equal to their wishes and their pains. I was their only child, and form’d to bless, I always added to their happiness; They saw my person ev’ry one engage, Beheld my sense increasing with my age; Each Sunday to my dress they’d something add, For pleasing me was making of them glad; A diff’rent ribband bound my flowing hair, Wav’d in my hat, and flutter’d in the air; Thus simply pleas’d, and innocent likewise, I caught, at last, =Lothario=’s wanton eyes. ABOUT fifteen, my face had Nature’s bloom, My lips enticing, and my breath perfume! My eyes, like sloes, were glossy, black, and bright! My shape was slender, and my steps were light! HE saw me tripping o’er the dewy lawn, Brisk as the lambkins, or the bounding fawn; He hail’d my beauties in so soft a speech, Which sure a heart less kind than mine might reach; I blush’d, he follow’d, met me ev’ry day, ’Till I became, at last, his destin’d prey. Yet, oh! what vows, what oaths, did he prepare, Before I fell into his baneful snare; He call’d me wife, swore I should be his bride, With protestations, very high beside; Beg’d to my parents I would nothing tell, If that I wish’d his love and person well. HIS friends were pow’rful, and I soon comply’d, For what he ask’d, then could not be deny’d; I thought that time would reconcile my fate, And lift me far above my present state; Such fatal folly I must still deplore, No wife am I, but a =neglected WHORE=! FRUITION soon my lover’s passion cool’d, His absence let me know how I was fool’d; My heaving womb a diff’rent weight confest, My parents saw it, and were much distrest: I told the cause;—they turn’d me out of door, And made we wander forth a wretched =WHORE=! TO faithless him my ruin I must lay, He first seduc’d and did my heart betray:— High in a diff’rent sphere he took a wife; O! may she be to him eternal strife; May she to lustful passion give her heart! That ev’ry fool, with him, may have a part; Tho’ higher born, no diff’rence I can see She should not be a =WHORE=—as well as me. That =WHORES= are many, certainly you’ll find, Is owing to the baseness of mankind; Tho’ inclination oft’ our passions sway, ’Tis man, vile man! first teaches us the way.