Tixall Poetry/An Epistle, in Answer to Ephelia

by unknown author

An Epistle

in Answer to Ephelia.

 

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 Madam,
If you're deceav'd, it is not by my cheat,
For all disguises are below the great.
What man or woman upon earth can say,
I ever us'd 'em well above a day?
How is it then that I inconstant am?
He changes not who allwayes is the same.
$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$In my deare selfe I centre every thing;
My servants, friends, my mistress, and my king;
Nay, heaven and earth to that one point I bring.
Well manner'd, honest, generous, and stout,
Names by dull fooles to plague mankind found out,
Should I regard, I must my selfe constrain,
And 'tis my maxim to avoid all paine.
You fondly look for what none ere could find,
Deceav'd your selfe, and then call me unkind:
And by false reasons, would my falshood prove,
For 'tis as natural to change as love.
You may as justly at the sun repine,
Because alike it doth not alwayes shine.
No glorious thing was ever made to stay;
My biasing star but visets, and away.
As fatal too it shines as those ith' skies,
'Tis never seen but some greate lady dyes.
The boasted favor you so pretions hold,
To me's no more than changing of my gold.
What ere you gave, I paid you back in bliss,
Then where's the obligation pray of this?
If heretofore you found grace in my eyes,
Be thankfull for it, and let that suffice.
But women, beggar like, still haunt the dore
Where they receaved a charity before.
$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$O happy Sultan, whom we barbarous call!
How much refin'd art thou above us all!
W ho envies not the ioyes of thy serail?
Thee, like some god, the trembling crowd adore,
Each man's thy slave, and womankind's thy—.
Methinks I see thee underneath the shade
Of golden canopies supinely laid;
Thy crouching slaves, all silent as the night,
But at thy nod, all active as the light.
Secure in solid sloath, thou there doest reign,
And feelst the ioyes of love without the pain.
Each female courts thee with a wishing eye,
Whilst thou with awfull pride walkst careless by;
Till thy kind pleadge at last markes out the dame,
Thou fanciest most to quench thy present flame.
No loud reproach, nor fond unwelcom sound,
Of womens tongues thy sacred eares dare wound.
If any do, a nimble mute strait tyes
The true love's knot, and stopes her foolish cryes.
Thou fearst no iniur'd kinsman's threatning blade,
Nor midnight ambushes by rivalls lay'd:
Whilst here, with akeing harts our joys we taste,
Disturb'd by swords, like Democles his feast.