A slavery beyond enduring,
But that ’tis of their own procuring. 630
As spiders never seek the fly,
But leave him, of himself, t’ apply
So men are by themselves employ’d,
To quit the freedom they enjoy’d,
And run their necks into a noose, 635
They’d break ’em after, to break loose;
As some whom Death would not depart,
Have done the feat themselves by art;
Like Indian widows, gone to bed
In flaming curtains to the dead; 640
And men as often dangled for’t,
And yet will never leave the sport. 
Nor do the ladies want excuse
For all the stratagems they use
To gain the advantage of the set, 645
And lurch the amorous rook and cheat
For as the Pythagorean soul
Runs through all beasts, and fish and fowl,
And has a smack of ev’ry one,
So love does, and has ever done; 650
And therefore, though ’tis ne’er so fond,
Takes strangely to the vagabond. 
’Tis but an ague that’s reverst,
Whose hot fit takes the patient first,
That after burns with cold as much 655
As ir’n in Greenland does the touch;
Melts in the furnace of desire
Like glass, that’s but the ice of fire;
And when his heat of fancy’s over,
Becomes as hard and frail a lover. 660
For when he’s with love-powder laden,
And prim’d and cock’d by Miss or Madam,
The smallest sparkle of an eye
Gives fire to his artillery;
And off the loud oaths go; but while 665
They’re in the very act, recoil. 
Hence ’tis so few dare take their chance
Without a sep’rate maintenance;
And widows, who have try’d one lover,
Trust none again, ‘till th’ have made over; 670
Or if they do, before they marry,
The foxes weigh the geese they carry;
And e’re they venture o’er a stream,
Know how to size themselves and them;
Whence wittiest ladies always choose 675
To undertake the heaviest goose
For now the world is grown so wary,
That few of either sex dare marry,
But rather trust on tick t’ amours,
The cross and pile for better or worse; 680
A mode that is held honourable,
As well as French, and fashionable: 
For when it falls out for the best,
Where both are incommoded least,
In soul and body two unite, 685
To make up one hermaphrodite,
Still amorous, and fond, and billing,
Like Philip and Mary on a shilling,
Th’ have more punctilios and capriches
Between the petticoat and breeches, 690
More petulant extravagances,
Than poets make ’em in romances. 
Though when their heroes ’spouse the dames,
We hear no more charms and flames: