Classic Poem

Two Brothers, Jack and Tom by name,
To try their luck, to London came:
Their fortunes were indeed but small;
Some forty shillings! that was all,
Which they as frugally bestow'd,
In their expences on the road;
And many a scanty meal they made,
Nor were to drinking yet betray'd.

 One day the elder thus began,
“Tis necessary that some plan
We fix on, brother, as we go;
How we're to act, and what to do.
London, I've heard my Father say,
Is full of sharpers, who betray
The artless stranger——Let us then
Be wary in our choice of men,
Let's manage all we get with skill,
Prudence anticipates each ill;
In womens company be nice,
For wenching is a horrid vice!
I own, if Fortune crown my life,
I mean to make some girl my wife;
Some innocent industrious fair,
Who'll make her home and me her care;
Whose brain has ne'er been set a madding,
For ever after pleasure gadding,
Occasion'd by superior breeding,
And the curs'd itch of novel-reading.
That home can ne'er be happy sure,
Where coxcombs loiter round the door:
Yet such the case with all those asses,
Who marry high-flown, town bred lasses,
Let me have one with rosy fist,
Who'll fight and struggle e'er be kiss'd;
Whose education is but small,
The better——if she's none at all;
In family affairs proceed———
What need a woman learn to read?”

 Tom heard him out, and thus reply'd,
I shall not chuse for you a bride;
And, if it e'er should be my fate,
To venture on a married state,
I do expect, dear Jack, that you
In that case will be silent too,
Then be our fate, or bliss or shame,
We cannot one another blame.
The advise you give I don't despise,
Nor doubt your conduct will be wise.
My temper long you've known to be
Compos'd of too much levity;
One thing I always have design'd,
In what I can to please my mind.”

 Thus as they talk, to town they come;
To town, their long intended home;
Some days they spent in seeing sights;
Strange things, that every clown delights;
The Abbey, Wax-work, and the rest,
Too much to be in rhime exprest;
Then bade adieu to all such toys,
And bus'ness now each mind employs.

 Jack was industrious at his trade,
Pursu'd the very plan he laid;
Early and late he ply'd his work,
And toil'd like any galley Turk;
Spent little, hoarded up his pelf,
Thought none so——prudent as himself.

 Tom he pursu'd a different way;
Would sometimes work—and sometimes play:
Kept company, would drink and sing,
Would toast his mistress, or—the king:
Whate'er he got with ease he spent,
Yet liv'd a life of great content.

 Jack, as he had before design'd,
Meeting a female to his mind,
With great dispatch the bus'ness carry'd,
And in a little time was married.

 Nor was Tom long behind-hand found,
But in the chains of Hymen bound.
 Suppose the honey-moon is o'er;
A month, or two, perhaps, or more:
Let's pay to each a friendly visit,
And ask the lads, in turn, How is it?

 Jack swears he's had a precious catch,
The devil himself made up his match:
His wife is sottish, sluttish, proud;
Her tongue, like any mill-clack, loud!
She horns him, scorns him, robs him, beats him;
And every way that's bad, she treats him;
While he t' avoid continual strife,
And all the plague of such a wife,
Flies to the bottle for relief,
And drowns his senses with his grief.
A course he never thought to take,
He lives—a drunkard, and a rake!

 Tom hath a different method took,
His former follies all forsook;
He does not even wish to roam,
But finds contentment all at home:
The girl allotted to his care,
Is prudent, sensible and fair;
A foe to all domestic strife;
A loving, gentle, frugal wife.

 But what's all this to me, I pray?
Methinks I hear the reader say:
What's Tom, or Jack, to you or I,
What moral does your tale imply;
To what can all this rhiming tend?
Have patience, and I'll tell you friend.

 Jack, who took prudence for a guide,
Was yet unhappy in a bride;
And all his plodding schemes, you see,
Produc'd him nought but misery:
While careless Tom is blest by fate,
And truly happy in a mate.
Extend the subject thro' all life,
Not only in one thing—a wife;
In all, 'tis so!—the man who strives
To do the best, still badly thrives;
While he who does not care a pin
Whether in life he loose or win,
Without the famous wishing-cap,
Shall have dame Fortune in his lap.
From this, I think my friend, you'll find
That fate and fortune both are blind.