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Title: Life
Author: James Parkerson [
More Titles by Parkerson]
When e’er you walk the hill or street,
A flaunting dressing thing you’ll meet;
Her wanton air would fain beguile,
A thoughtless youth to stray awhile:
Her conversation gross he’ll find,
Chaste modesty she leaves behind;
That Goddess seldom now appear,
Where people walk to take the air.
She daily must in Laces dress,
Altho’ her parents in distress:
She’ll get them any way she can,
To marry some unthinking man.
When he the flaunter do obtain,
On pleasure’s wings she fix her brain;
His shirts or stockings she can’t mend,
But must them to a neighbour send;
And tells her husband, he must stray
With her to see a merry play.
He must comply, or else he’ll find
She teazes much his gloomy mind;
Often she does the man reproach,
Because he cannot keep a Coach:
Tells him she cannot rest at home,
And do with finer people roam;
The husband now alarm’d appears,
Too just his reason for his fears:
Truth silence now his sad alarms,
She’s fled into another’s arms.
Parents oft cause a girl’s distress,
By letting her devote to dress;
Time which they should frequent spend,
At house-work, or their clothes to mend:
A watch must now adorn the side,
To fill their minds with erring pride;
Tells her that every fop admire,
And soon she’ll gain a Country squire;
Again I say a boarding school,
Too often makes sweet Miss a fool;
Put such strange notions in her brain,
As she cannot good sense retain:
When Miss is taken from the school,
She wants in every thing to rule;
There she perhaps may learn to dance,
Alike the paltry things from France:
This plain truth I dare to tell,
But few from them correctly spell;
Too often write so bad a hand,
That scarce one line you understand;
Their education often makes,
Them only fit for lords or rakes.
To Miss and schools I bid adieu,
And will another tale pursue.
Many a tradesman in this place,
Brings on themselves their own disgrace;
Politics engross their mind,
And cause their friends to be unkind:
The horns anounce the papers in,
His daily pleasures now begin;
Two hours are wasted in this day,
Which time he should to business pay;
Customers too frequent call,
And cannot see the man at all:
Each one declares he’ll call no more,
As he had been there oft before.
No wonder that he cannot pay,
As thus he trifles time away:
We often do our fate bewail,
When adverse gales do us assail;
The money that we waste away,
Frequent we should to others pay;
Careless of our neighbours grief,
We only seek our own relief;
The cause we have such dismal times,
Is chiefly owing to our crimes.
The pipe and bottle frequent stay,
The man who should attention pay;
To business, or to any thing
Which may perhaps a profit bring;
Insteads of wine, drink humble ale,
Drop fine gigs thus ends my tale.
[The end]
James Parkerson's poem: Life
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