“Come, tell me quick, the why, when, where, and how!”

Yet art thou lovely as the gentle light,

That falleth dew-sprent from the orbs of night;

And, wert thou fled, this world of ours would be

Dark as the Fates, and barren as the sea.

When wise, and kind, and generous, and mild,

Thou rul’st us, as a mother rules her child.

But when thy passions take their headlong way,

We scorn thine empire, and defy thy sway.—

Must, then, a pretty, peering, prying wife,