Unhappy Man! yoak’d with a wanton Wife,
The Wedding Day begins thy wretched Life. 
Not all the Hurry of a Married State,
Can stint her Humour, make her more Sedate. 
She’as all the Tricks the Devil can infuse
Into her Head; her Husband to abuse. 
Her first attempt, when once the knot is ty’d. 
Is how to Govern what she cannot Guide;
She flatters first, and if that chance to fail,
To gain her Ends a worser Method shall. 
Force must (where Words have no effect) ensue,
It is her Humour, and it shall be so. 
Thus does the fright the poor mistaken Sot,
To change his Breeches for a Petticoat: 
If Kick’d or Buffeted, he dare not move,
But thinks ’tis only tokens of her Love. 
What she affirms (tho’ diff’rent from the Sight,
It must be so, she’s always in the right.

The Second Comfort.

        When thus she’as made her silly Husband bend,
        She’ll never let him have the upper hand. 
        She manages Affairs, while he (poor Soul)
        Consents, because he’s fearful to controul;
        Not that she will to Diligence adhere,
        She’ll take the Pleasure, he may take the Care. 
        Containing an unequal Dividend,
        His Business is to get, and hers to spend. 
        If he’s unable to supply her Lust,
        She’ll take such care of that, another must. 
        Her Prentice, Bully, Stallion, Foes or Friends,
        No matter who, if she but gain her Ends: 
        While he’s the very Subject of her Scorns,
        And sounds himself a Cuckold with his Horns: 
        Yet she’s so cunning, that she rails at Evil,
        And says, she hates a Harlot as the Devil. 
        So have I heard a Pulpit Hector rant
        At Drunkenness, as zealous as a Saint,
        Curse it to Hell, with trembling and with fear,
        Tho’ ’twas a Vice he seldom cou’d forbear. 
        So she derides the thing she fancies best,
        And Damns the Sin she harbours in her Breast.

The Third Comfort.

Next comes a little Bantling to Town, Which the unthinking Cuckold calls his own.  ’Tis like him too, as ever it can stare, The midnight Gossips then do all declare. His very Picture; every one do cry, His Mouth, his Lips, his Chin, his Nose and Eye. They tell him this, and he believes it too, Tho’ it was gotten by the Lord knows who.  Yet this Advantage from it he doth draw, He reigns chief Master, while she’s in the Straw.  But when she rises, all his Power must cease, And with it too, his Comfort and his Peace.  Her Tongue’s compounded of all sorts of ill, Given to lie, but seldom lying still. You Rogue (quoth she) where has your Rakeship been?  These Thirty days your Honest Wife lay in?  Here, Rock the Child, while I go take the Air, I won’t be stifled up no longer here.

The Fourth Comfort.