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(A Tale, 1720)
A PRUDE, at morn and ev’ning prayer, | |
| Had worn her velvet cushion bare; | |
| Upward she taught her eyes to roll, | |
| As if she watched her soaring soul; | |
| And when devotion warmed the crowd, | 5 |
| None sung, or smote their breast so loud: | |
| Pale Penitence had mark’d her face | |
| With all the meagre signs of grace. | |
| Her mass-book was completely lined | |
| With painted saints of various kind: | 10 |
| But when in ev’ry page she viewed | |
| Fine ladies who the flesh subdued; | |
| As quick her beads she counted o’er, | |
| She cried—such wonders are no more! | |
| She chose not to delay confession, | 15 |
| To bear at once a year’s transgression, | |
| But ev’ry week set all things even, | |
| And balanced her accounts with heaven. | |
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| Behold her now in humble guise, | |
| Upon her knees with downcast eyes | 20 |
| Before the Priest: she thus begins, | |
| And, sobbing, blubbers forth her sins; | |
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| Who could that tempting man resist? | |
| My virtue languished, as he kissed; | |
| I strove,—till I could strive no longer, | 25 |
| How can the weak subdue the stronger? | |
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| The father asked her where and when? | |
| How many? and what sort of men? | |
| By what degrees her blood was heated? | |
| How oft the frailty was repeated? | 30 |
| Thus have I seen a pregnant wench | |
| All flushed with guilt before the bench, | |
| The judges (waked by wanton thought) | |
| Dive to the bottom of her fault, | |
| They leer, they simper at her shame, | 35 |
| And make her call all things by name. | |
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| And now to sentence he proceeds, | |
| Prescribes how oft to tell her beads; | |
| Shows her what saints could do her good, | |
| Doubles her fasts to cool her blood. | 40 |
| Eased of her sins, and light as air, | |
| Away she trips, perhaps to prayer. | |
| ’Twas no such thing. Why then this haste? | |
| The clock has struck, the hour is past, | |
| And on the spur of inclination, | 45 |
| She scorn’d to bilk her assignation. | |
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| Whate’er she did, next week she came, | |
| And piously contest the same; | |
| The Priest, who female frailties pitied, | |
| First chid her, then her sins remitted. * * * * * | 50 |
| Madam, I grant there’s something in it, | |
| That virtue has th’ unguarded minute; | |
| But pray now tell me what are whores, | |
| But women of unguarded hours? | |
| Then you must sure have lost all shame. | 55 |
| What, ev’ry day, and still the same, | |
| And no fault else! ’tis strange to find | |
| A woman to one sin confined! | |
| Pride is this day her darling passion, | |
| The next day slander is in fashion; | 60 |
| Gaming succeeds; if fortune crosses, | |
| Then virtue’s mortgaged for her losses; | |
| By use her fav’rite vice she loathes, | |
| And loves new follies like new clothes: | |
| But you, beyond all thought unchaste, | 65 |
| Have all sin center’d near your waist! | |
| Whence is this appetite so strong? | |
| Say, Madam, did your mother long? | |
| Or is it luxury and high diet | |
| That won’t let virtue sleep in quiet? | 70 |
| She tells him now with meekest voice, | |
| That she had never erred by choice, | |
| Nor was their known a virgin chaster, | |
| Till ruin’d by a sad disaster. | |
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| That she a fav’rite lap-dog had, | 75 |
| Which, (as she stroked and kiss’d) grew mad; | |
| And on her lip a wound indenting, | |
| First set her youthful blood fermenting. * * * * * | |
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