Cease, tempting syren, cease thy flattering strain,
  Sweet is thy charming song, but song in vain: 
  When the winds blow, and loud the tempests roar,
  What fool would trust the waves, and quit the shore? 
  Early and vain into the world I came,
  Big with false hopes and eager after fame: 
  Till looking round me, e’er the race began,
  Madmen and giddy fools were all that ran. 
  Reclaimed betimes, I from the lists retire,
  And thank the Gods, who my retreat inspire. 
  In happier times our ancestors were bred,
  When virtue was the only path to tread. 
  Give me, ye Gods, but the same road to fame,
  Whate’er my father’s dar’d, I dare the same. 
  Changed is the scene, some baneful planet rules
  An impious world contriv’d for knaves and fools.

He concludes with the following lines

  Happy the man, of mortals happiest he,
  Whose quiet mind of vain desires is free;
  Whom neither hopes deceive, nor fears torment,
  But lives at peace, within himself content,
  In thought or act accountable to none
  But to himself, and to the Gods alone. 
  O sweetness of content, seraphic joy! 
  Which nothing wants, and nothing can destroy. 
  Where dwells this peace, this freedom of the mind? 
  Where but in shades remote from human kind;
  In flow’ry vales, where nymphs and shepherds meet,
  But never comes within the palace-gate. 
  Farewel then cities, courts, and camps farewel,
  Welcome ye groves, here let me ever dwell,
  From care and bus’ness, and mankind remove,
  All but the Muses, and inspiring love: 
  How sweet the morn, how gentle is the night! 
  How calm the evening, and the day how bright! 
  From thence, as from a hill, I view below
  The crowded world, a mighty wood in shew,
  Where several wand’rers travel day and night,
  By different paths, and none are in the right.

In 1696 his Comedy called the She Gallants was acted at the Theatre-Royal[C] in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields.  He afterwards altered this Comedy, and published it among his other works, under the title of Once a Lover and Always a Lover, which, as he observes in the preface, is a new building upon an old foundation.

’It appeared first under the name of the She-Gallants, and by the preface then prefixed to it, is said to have been the Child of a Child.  By taking it since under examination; so many years after, the author flatters himself to have made a correct Comedy of it; he found it regular to his hand; the scene constant to one place, the time not exceeding the bounds prescribed, and the action entire.  It remained only to clear the ground, and to plant as it were fresh flowers in the room of those which were grown into weeds or were faded by time; to retouch and vary the characters; enliven the painting, retrench the superfluous; and animate the action, where it appeared the young author seemed to aim at more than he had strength to perform.’