Page:Old maid and widow, or, The widow the best wife.pdf/4

Rh For tho’ I mean to cast nae stigma,

I deem the question an enigma.

Now rhyme suits best to solve a riddle,

I’ve therefore, tried my rustic fiddle;

An’ if ye’ll thole my hamely clatter,

Ye’s get my mind about the matter;

For tho' experience does na guide me.

I'll sing what I've observed beside me.

But tent me weel— although the story

That I intend to lay before ye,

Is true as Euclid’s demonstrations,

Yet, as you mak’ your observations,

Think for yoursel’ as you proceed,

Nor let the Muse lay down your creed:

Observe my pictures as they pass;

But censure not the general class

A M an’ W, I could name,

Whom envy’s self could never blame;

Whose grytest failings are good nature,

Wi’ loveliness in ilka feature:

To minds like thae, endowed wi’ sense,

My verse can never give offence.

And should some clarty, cankered wife,

Here find her likeness, drawn from life,

The fault is her’s— to suit the picture;

Not mine— who sketched the moral stricture.