O impious act, including all foul harms!
A martial man to be soft fancy's slave!—
What win I, if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy!
Who buys a minute's mirth, to wail a week?
Or sells eternity, to get a toy?"
The same terseness of diction and concinnity of versification appear in the subsequent lines:—
"Then for thy husband's and thy children's sake,
Tender my suit: bequeath not to their lot
The shame that from them no device can take,