Melissa: Unhappy they, who by their duty led,
Are made the partners of a hated bed;
And by their father’s avarice or pride,
To empty fops, or nauseous clowns are tied;
Or else constrained to give up all their charms
Into an old ill-humoured husband’s arms,
Who hugs his bags, and never was inclined
To be to aught besides his money kind,
Who’s always positive in what is ill,
And still a slave to his imperious will: [10]
Averse to any thing he thinks will please,
Still sick, and still in love with his disease:
With fears, with discontent, with envy curst,
To all uneasy, and himself the worst:
A spiteful censor of the present age,
Or dully jesting, or deformed with rage […]
’Tis hard we should be by the men despised,
Yet kept from knowing what would make us prized:
Debarred from knowledge, banished from the schools,
And with the utmost industry bred fools. [20]
Laughed out of reason, jested out of sense,
And nothing left but native innocence:
Then told we are incapable of wit,
And only for the meanest drudgeries fit:
Made slaves to serve their luxury and pride,
And with innumerable hardships tried,
Till pitying Heav’n release us from our pain […]
They think, if we our thoughts can but express,
And know but how to work, to dance and dress,
It is enough, as much as we should mind, [30]
As if we were for nothing else designed,
But made, like puppets, to divert mankind.
O that my sex would all such toys despise;
And only study to be good, and wise […]
Through all the labyrinth of learning go,
And grow more humble, as they more do know.
By doing this, they will respect procure,
Silence the men, and lasting fame secure;
And to themselves the best companions prove,
And neither fear their malice, nor desire their love. [40]