Where suits are traversed; and so little won,
That he who conquers, is but last undone:
Such are not your decrees; but so design'd,
The sanction leaves a lasting peace behind;
Like your own soul, serene; a pattern of your mind.

Promoting concord, and composing strife,
Lord of yourself, uncumber'd with a wife;
Where, for a year, a month, perhaps a night,
Long penitence succeeds a short delight: 20
Minds are so hardly match'd, that even the first,
Though pair'd by Heaven, in Paradise were cursed.
For man and woman, though in one they grow,
Yet, first or last, return again to two.
He to God's image, she to his was made;
So farther from the fount the stream at random stray'd.

How could he stand, when, put to double pain,
He must a weaker than himself sustain!
Each might have stood perhaps; but each alone;
Two wrestlers help to pull each other down. 30

Not that my verse would blemish all the fair;
But yet, if some be bad, 'tis wisdom to beware;
And better shun the bait, than struggle in the snare.
Thus have you shunn'd, and shun the married state,
Trusting as little as you can to fate.

No porter guards the passage of your door,
To admit the wealthy, and exclude the poor;