The mother scream'd, the father chid;
Where can this idle wench be hid?
No news of Phyl! the bridegroom came,
And thought his bride had skulk'd for shame;
Because her father us'd to say,
The girl had such a bashful way!
Now John the butler must be sent
To learn the road that Phyllis went;
The groom was wish'd to saddle Crop;
For John must neither light nor stop,
But find her, wheresoe'er she fled,
And bring her back, alive or dead.
See here again the devil to do!
For truly John was missing too:
The horse and pillion both were gone!
Phyllis, it seems, was fled with John.
Old Madam, who went up to find
What papers Phyl had left behind,
A letter on the toilet sees,
To my much honoured father — these —
('Tis always done, romances tell us,
When daughters run away with fellows)
Fill'd with the choicest commonplaces,
By others us'd in the like cases.
"That long ago a fortuneteller
Exactly said what now befel her;
And in a glass had made her see
A serving-man of low degree.
It was her fate, must be forgiven;
For marriages were made in Heaven:
His pardon begg'd: but, to be plain,
She'd do't if 'twere to do again:
Thank'd God, 'twas neither shame nor sin;
For John was come of honest kin.
