SONNET.

Man stalks gigantic, lord in proud extreme,

O’er all creations wond’rous scope can give,

Bow’d by no yoke, scarce to the great supreme,

Whose sanction bad mortality to live.

Yet what pursues he? Lucre’s molten pelf,

Or pleaure’s silken chain of visions dear,

Of knowledge boasting, while unknown himself

And loudly cavils at existence here.

To be, and yet to be, is but the small demand,

Seek then religion’s purifying glow,

It tranquilizes time, with stubborn hand,

Whilst hoary age hopes endless life to know.

Our utmost here fills but a requiem page,

Poor, frail memorial of the passing age.

To wed, or not to wed—That is the question;

Whether ’tis happier in the mind to stifle

The heats and tumults of outrageous passion,

Or with some prudent fair in solemn contract

Of matrimony join---to have---to hold---

No more---and by that have to say we end

The heart-ach, and the thousand love-sick pangs

Of celibacy---’twere a consummation

Devoutly to be wish’d.——In nuptial band

To join till death dissolves;---Ay, there’s the rub;

For in that space what dull remorse may come,

When we have taken our solemn leave of liberty,

Must give us pause.——There’s the respect

That slacks our speed in suing for a change.

Else---who would bear the scorns and sneers which bachelors

When aged feel, the pains and flatt’ring fevers

Which each new face must give to roving fancy,

When he might rid himself at once of all

By a bare Yes. Who would with patience bear

To fret and linger out a single life,

But that the dread of something yet untry’d,

Some hazard in a state from whose strict bond

Death only can release, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather chuse those ills we have,

Than fly to others which we fancy greater!

This last reflection makes us slow and wary,

Filling the dubious mind with dreadful thoughts

Of curtain-lectures, jealousies, and cares

Extravagantly great, entail’d on wedlock,

Which to avoid the lover checks his passion,

And, miserable, dies a BACHELOR.