XIV.

Ahem! Ahem! My reader noble,

Are all your relatives quite well?

Permit me; is it worth the trouble

For your instruction here to tell

What I by relatives conceive?

These are your relatives, believe:

Those whom we ought to love, caress,

With spiritual tenderness;

Whom, as the custom is of men,

We visit about Christmas Day,

Or by a card our homage pay,

That until Christmas comes again

They may forget that we exist.

And so - God bless them, if He list.

XV.

In this the love of the fair sex

Beats that of friends and relatives:

In love, although its tempests vex,

Our liberty at least survives:

Agreed! but then the whirl of fashion,

The natural fickleness of passion,

The torrent of opinion,

And the fair sex as light as down!

Besides the hobbies of a spouse

Should be respected throughout life

By every proper-minded wife,

And this the faithful one allows,

When in as instant she is lost, -

Satan will jest, and at love's cost.

XVI.

Oh! where bestow our love? Whom trust?

Where is he who doth not deceive?

Who words and actions will adjust

To standards in which we believe?