Who hail the day in each revolving year: 
These are with us, as in the world around;
They are not frequent, but they may be found. 
   Our farmers too, what though they fail to prove,
In Hymen’s bonds, the tenderest slaves of love,
(Nor, like those pairs whom sentiment unites,
Feel they the fervour of the mind’s delights;)
Yet coarsely kind and comfortably gay,
They heap the board and hail the happy day: 
And though the bride, now freed from school, admits,
Of pride implanted there, some transient fits;
Yet soon she casts her girlish flights aside,
And in substantial blessings rest her pride. 
No more she moves in measured steps; no more
Runs, with bewilder’d ear, her music o’er;
No more recites her French the hinds among,
But chides her maidens in her mother-tongue;
Her tambour-frame she leaves and diet spare,
Plain work and plenty with her house to share;
Till, all her varnish lost in few short years,
In all her worth the farmer’s wife appears. 
   Yet not the ancient kind; nor she who gave
Her soul to gain—­a mistress and a slave: 
Who, not to sleep allow’d the needful time;
To whom repose was loss, and sport a crime;
Who, in her meanest room (and all were mean),
A noisy drudge, from morn till night was seen; —
But she, the daughter, boasts a decent room,
Adorned with carpet, formed in Wilton’s loom;
Fair prints along the paper’d wall are spread;
There, Werter sees the sportive children fed,
And Charlotte, here, bewails her lover dead. 
   ’Tis here, assembled, while in space apart
Their husbands, drinking, warm the opening heart,
Our neighbouring dames, on festal days, unite,
With tongues more fluent and with hearts as light;
Theirs is that art, which English wives alone
Profess—­a boast and privilege their own;
An art it is where each at once attends
To all, and claims attention from her friends,
When they engage the tongue, the eye, the ear,
Reply when listening, and when speaking hear: 
The ready converse knows no dull delays,
“But double are the pains, and double be the praise.” 
   Yet not to those alone who bear command
Heaven gives a heart to hail the marriage band;
Among their servants, we the pairs can show,
Who much to love and more to prudence owe: 
Reuben and Rachel, though as fond as doves,
Were yet discreet and cautious in their loves;
Nor would attend to Cupid’s wild commands,
Till cool reflection bade them join their hands: 
When both were poor, they thought it argued ill
Of hasty love to make them poorer still;
Year after year, with savings long laid by,
They bought the future dwelling’s full supply;
Her frugal fancy cull’d the smaller ware,
The weightier purchase ask’d her Reuben’s care;
Together then their last year’s gain they threw,
And lo! an auction’d bed, with curtains neat and new.