Small arguments are needful to persuade
  Your temper to comply with my command;
  And speaking thus, he gave Emilia’s hand. 1140
  Smiled Venus, to behold her own true knight
  Obtain the conquest, though he lost the fight;
  And bless’d with nuptial bliss the sweet laborious night. 
  Eros, and Anteros, on either side,
  One fired the bridegroom, and one warm’d the bride;
  And long-attending Hymen from above,
  Shower’d on the bed the whole Idalian grove. 
  All of a tenor was their after-life,
  No day discolour’d with domestic strife;
  No jealousy, but mutual truth believed, 1150
  Secure repose, and kindness undeceived. 
  Thus Heaven, beyond the compass of his thought,
  Sent him the blessing he so dearly bought.

    So may the Queen of Love long duty bless,
  And all true lovers find the same success!

* * * * *

THE COCK AND THE FOX:  OR, THE TALE OF THE NUN’S PRIEST.

  There lived, as authors tell, in days of yore,
  A widow somewhat old, and very poor: 
  Deep in a cell her cottage lonely stood,
  Well thatch’d, and under covert of a wood. 
  This dowager, on whom my tale I found,
  Since last she laid her husband in the ground,
  A simple sober life, in patience, led,
  And had but just enough to buy her bread: 
  But huswifing the little Heaven had lent,
  She duly paid a groat for quarter rent; 10
  And pinch’d her belly, with her daughters two,
  To bring the year about with much ado.

    The cattle in her homestead were three sows,
  A ewe call’d Mally, and three brinded cows. 
  Her parlour-window stuck with herbs around,
  Of savoury smell; and rushes strew’d the ground. 
  A mapple-dresser in her hall she had,
  On which full many a slender meal she made;
  For no delicious morsel pass’d her throat;
  According to her cloth she cut her coat:  20
  No poignant sauce she knew, nor costly treat,
  Her hunger gave a relish to her meat: 
  A sparing diet did her health assure;
  Or sick, a pepper posset was her cure. 
  Before the day was done, her work she sped,
  And never went by candlelight to bed: 
  With exercise she sweat ill humours out,
  Her dancing was not hindered by the gout. 
  Her poverty was glad; her heart content;
  Nor knew she what the spleen or vapours meant. 30
  Of wine she never tasted through the year,
  But white and black was all her homely cheer: 
  Brown bread, and milk (but first she skimm’d her bowls),
  And rashers of singed bacon on the coals;
  On holy days, an egg or two at most;
  But her ambition never reach’d to roast.