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,