VERSES WRITTEN IMMEDIATELY AFTER READING HORACE SMITH'S

He who wrote these lively verses

Hath his talents misemployed,

While he marriage ills rehearses —

The conjugal life asperses

Which so many have enjoyed.

And each brown or blue eyed charmer,

Let her rank be high or low,

Must have felt such verses harm her —

Must have felt her cheek grow warmer

With just indignation's glow.

Were he then as bachelor living

He might speak of bachelor life.

But such men need not be giving

Crabbed views of man and wife.

If he were to fair one married

Greater still would be the shame;

It would prove love had miscarried,

He alone perhaps to blame.

Were it shown that he was jesting,

Jests like this with ills are rife;

Poets should be still attesting

This plain truth — Mankind are blest in

Chaste and sweet Conjugal Life.

Marriage is of God's ordaining,

Serving purpose wise and good.

Those who are from it abstaining,

Should be found always refraining

From treating it in jesting mood.

From experience I am speaking,

In protesting I prefer

A wedded life. If you are seeking

To have pockets with no leak in,

From it let naught you deter.

But this thing make up your mind in,

Choice should fall on one of worth.

Love of wealth some men are blind in;

For a wife may be worth finding,

Though she be of humble birth.

If you are a true wife blest in,

Mind you well fulfill your part,

That you may, all cares distressed in,

Prove the warmth of woman's heart.

I have proved it in rich measure,

And with honest brow declare,

Married life for sweetest pleasure

Can with any life compare!