Classic Poem

1

Companion of my cheated checkered life
& comfort of my sickly closing days
Heart broke with vain follys gauling strife
I turn at last my dearest friend to praise
No muses need their polished aids impart
To these unfeigned & unpolished songs
The true & homely utterance of the heart
To idle fancys visions neer belongs
When feelings errors at the close of life
Finds the best worth in the plain name of wife

2

Tho I in folly wooed thee & the world
Did brand my name with proofless infamy
Thou smiled upon me as without a fault
& upon rumour turned an heedless eye
Still I in follys paths did idly run
Thou even saw & yet believed it not
But like the smiling of the peerless sun
Chased clouds away & all their glooms forgot
& tho I had joined folly to mine end
Whilst thou wert left me I had yet a friend

3

I took an earnest friend in every one
Who in my presence uttered idle praise
But little thought I when my fame was gone
What clamours in my abscence they would raise
My smallest faults by them as soon as known
Was libeled into jests & magnified
Whilst thou who knew them most & first of all
Did every failing in thy bosom hide
Nay deemed my very sins of deepest shame
As more deserving thy excuse than blame

4

I fancied love in follys artful smiles
& told it often in a foolish song
& the best love that human life beguiles
I left too early & despised too long
Yet thus abused thy fondness loved me on
& thou wouldst weep even to see me sigh
Tho mine were griefs for wrongs myself had done
Yet would thy sorrows bare them company

5

I prized the prate of flatterys fashioned tongue
& took its idlest praise for earnest fame
But truer praise Id witnessed oft & long
& deemed it nought nor felt it even in name
Because it came from one whose honest praise
Was most familiar & best known to me
So sweetest flowers are that oftenest seem
Mere common weeds to be