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sk him awkward questions on the way About the time and place where he had been: He left his ship to be hove down next day, With orders to the people to careen; So that all hands were busy beyond measure, In getting out goods, ballast, guns, and treasure. Arriving at the summit of a hill Which overlook'd the white walls of his home, He stopp'd.--What singular emotions fill Their bosoms who have been induced to roam! With fluttering doubts if all be well or ill-- With love for many, and with fears for some; All feelings which o'erleap the years long lost, And bring our hearts back to their starting-post. The approach of home to husbands and to sires, After long travelling by land or water, Most naturally some small doubt inspires-- A female family 's a serious matter (None trusts the sex more, or so much admires-- But they hate flattery, so I never flatter); Wives in their husbands' absences grow subtler, And daughters sometimes run off with the butler. An honest gentleman at his return May not have the good fortune of Ulysses; Not all lone matrons for their husbands mourn, Or show the same dislike to suitors' kisses; The odds are that he finds a handsome urn To his memory--and two or three young misses Born to some friend, who holds his wife and riches,-- And that his Argus--bites him by the breeches. If single, probably his plighted fair Has in his absence wedded some rich miser; But all the better, for the happy pair May quarrel, and the lady growing wiser, He may resume his amatory care As cavalier servente, or despise her; And that his sorrow may not be a dumb one, Write odes on the Inconstancy of Woman. And oh! ye gentlemen who have already Some chaste liaison of the kind--I mean An honest friendship with a married lady-- The only thing of this sort ever seen To last--of all connections the most steady, And the true Hymen (the first 's but a screen)-- Yet for all that keep not too long away, I 've known the absent wrong'd four times a day. Lambro, our sea-solicitor, who had Much less experience of dry land than ocean, On seeing his own chimney-smoke, felt glad; But not knowing metaphysics, had no notion Of th
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