my face my handkerchief I spread,
To hide the flood of tears I did not shed.
The good man's coffin to the church was borne;
Around, the neighbours, and my clerk too, mourn.
But as he marched, good gods! he showed a pair 315
Of legs and feet, so clean, so strong, so fair!
Of twenty winters' age he seemed to be;
I, to say truth, was twenty more than he;
But vig'rous still, a lively buxom dame;
And had a wond'rous gift to quench a flame. 320
A conj'ror once, that deeply could divine,
Assured me, Mars in Taurus was my sign.
As the stars ordered, such my life has been:
Alas, alas, that ever love was sin!
Fair Venus gave me fire, and sprightly grace, 325
And Mars assurance, and a dauntless face.
By virtue of this pow'rful constellation,
I followed, always, my own inclination.

But to my tale: A month scarce passed away,
With dance and song, we kept the nuptial day. 330
All I possessed I gave to his command,
My goods and chattels, money, house, and land:
But oft repented, and repent it still;[27]
He proved a rebel to my sov'reign will:
Nay, once, by heav'n! he struck me on the face; 335
Hear but the fact, and judge, yourselves, the case.

Stubborn as any lioness was I,
And knew full well to raise my voice on high;
As true a rambler as I was before,
And would be so, in spite of all he swore. 340
He, against this, right sagely would advise,
And old examples set before my eyes;
Tell, how the Roman matrons led their life,
Of Gracchus' mother, and Duilius' wife;
And close the sermon, as beseemed his wit, 345
With some grave sentence out of Holy Writ.[28]
Oft would he say, who builds his house on sands,
Pricks his blind horse across the fallow lands,
Or lets his wife abroad with pilgrims roam,
Deserves a fool's-cap, and long ears at home. 350
All this availed not; for, whoe'er he be
That tells my faults, I hate him mortally:
And so do numbers more, I'll boldly say,
Men, women, clergy, regular and lay.
My spouse, who was, you know, to learning bred, 355
A certain treatise, oft, at evening,[29] read,
Where divers authors, whom the devil