Marriage

What, what is Marriage? Harris, Priscian!
Assist me with a definition.--
“Oh!” cries a charming silly fool,
Emerging from her boarding-school--
“Marriage is--love without disguises,
It is a--something that arises
From raptures and from stolen glances,
To be the end of all romances;
Vows--quarrels--moonshine--babes--but hush!
I mustn’t have you see me blush.”

“Pshaw!” says a modern modish wife,
“Marriage is splendour, fashion, life;
A house in town, and villa shady,
Balls, diamond bracelets, and ‘my lady;’
Then for finale, angry words,
Some people’s--‘obstinate’s--‘absurds!’
And peevish hearts, and silly heads,
And oaths, and bêtes, and separate beds.”

An aged bachelor, whose life
Has just been sweetened with a wife,
Tells out the latent grievance thus:
“Marriage is--odd! for one of us
’Tis worse a mile than rope or tree,
Hemlock, or sword, or slavery;
An end at once to all our ways,
Dismission to the one-horse chaise;
Adieu to Sunday car, and pig,
Adieu to wine, and whist, and wig;
Our friends turn out,--our wife’s are clapt in;
’Tis ‘Exit crony,’--‘Enter captain!’
Then hurry in a thousand thorns,--
Quarrels, and compliments,--and horns.
This is the yoke, and I must wear it;
Marriage is--hell, or something near it!”

“Why, marriage,” says an exquisite,
Sick from the supper of last night,
“Marriage is--after one by me!
I promised Tom to ride at three.--
Marriage is--’gad! I’m rather late;
La Fleur--my stays! and chocolate!--
Marriage is--really, though, ’twas hard
To lose a thousand on a card;
Sink the old Duchess!--three revokes!
’Gad! I must fell the abbey oaks:
Mary has lost a thousand more!--
Marriage is--’gad! a cursed bore!”

Hymen, who hears the blockheads groan,
Rises indignant from his throne,
And mocks their self-reviling tears,
And whispers thus in Folly’s ears:
“O frivolous of heart and head!
If strifes infest your nuptial bed,
Not Hymen’s hand, but guilt and sin,
Fashion and folly, force them in;
If on your couch is seated Care,
I did not bring the scoffer there;
If Hymen’s torch is feebler grown,
The hand that quenched it was your own;
And what I am, unthinking elves,
Ye all have made me for yourselves!”