A squire’s attendant, clad in keeper’s green;
Ere yet, with wages more and honour less,
He stood behind me in a graver dress. 
   James in an evil hour went forth to woo
Young Juliet Hart, and was her Romeo: 
They’d seen the play, and thought it vastly sweet
For two young lovers by the moon to meet;
The nymph was gentle, of her favours free,
E’en at a word—­no Rosalind was she;
Nor, like that other Juliet, tried his truth
With—­“Be thy purpose marriage, gentle youth?”
But him received, and heard his tender tale,
When sang the lark, and when the nightingale;
So in few months the generous lass was seen
I’ the way that all the Capulets had been. 
   Then first repentance seized the amorous man,
And—­shame on love!—­he reason’d and he ran;
The thoughtful Romeo trembled for his purse,
And the sad sounds, “for better and for worse.” 
   Yet could the Lover not so far withdraw,
But he was haunted both by Love and Law;
Now Law dismay’d him as he view’d its fangs,
Now Pity seized him for his Juliet’s pangs;
Then thoughts of justice and some dread of jail,
Where all would blame him, and where none might bail;
These drew him back, till Juliet’s hut appear’d,
Where love had drawn him when he should have fear’d. 
   There sat the father in his wicker throne,
Uttering his curses in tremendous tone: 
With foulest names his daughter he reviled,
And look’d a very Herod at the child: 
Nor was she patient, but with equal scorn,
Bade him remember when his Joe was born: 
Then rose the mother, eager to begin
Her plea for frailty, when the swain came in. 
   To him she turn’d, and other theme began,
Show’d him his boy, and bade him be a man;
“An honest man, who, when he breaks the laws,
Will make a woman honest if there’s cause.” 
With lengthen’d speech she proved what came to pass
Was no reflection on a loving lass: 
“If she your love as wife and mother claim,
What can it matter which was first the name? 
But ’tis most base, ’tis perjury and theft,
When a lost girl is like a widow left;
The rogue who ruins .. " here the father found
His spouse was treading on forbidden ground. 
   “That’s not the point,” quoth he, “I don’t suppose
My good friend Fletcher to be one of those;
What’s done amiss he’ll mend in proper time —
I hate to hear of villany and crime: 
’Twas my misfortune, in the days of youth,
To find two lasses pleading for my truth;
The case was hard, I would with all my soul
Have wedded both, but law is our control;
So one I took, and when we gain’d a home,
Her friend agreed—­what could she more?—­to come;
And when she found that I’d a widow’d bed,
Me she desired—­what could I less?—­to wed. 
An easier case is yours:  you’ve not the smart
That two fond pleaders cause in one man’s heart. 
You’ve not to wait from year to year distress’d,