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,