Aaron Hill (1685 – 1750)
English dramatist and miscellaneous writer.
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Youth is ever apt to judge in haste,
And lose the medium in the wild extreme,
Do not repent, but regulate your passion:
Though love is reason, its excess is rage.
Give me, at least, your promise to reflect,
In cool, impartial solitude, and still.
No last decision till we meet again.
Joys, which we do not know, we do not wish.
Reason gains all men, by compelling none.
Mercy was always Heaven's distinguished mark:
And he, who bears it not, has no friend there.
O'er Nature's laws, God cast the veil of night,
Out blaz'd a Newton's soul — and all was light.
You talk no more of that gay nation now,
Where men adore their wives, and woman's power
Draws reverence from a polished people's softness,
Their husbands' equals, and their lovers' queens;
Free without scandal; wise without restraint;
Their virtue due to nature, not to fear.
Courage is poorly housed that dwells in numbers; the lion never counts the herd that are about him, nor weighs how many flocks he has to scatter.
First, then, a woman will or won’t, depend on ’t;
If she will do ’t, she will; and there ’s an end on ’t.
But if she won’t, since safe and sound your trust is,
Fear is affront, and jealousy injustice.
Can my fond heart, on such a feeble proof,
Embrace a faith, abhorred by him I love?
I see too plainly custom forms us all;
Our thoughts, our morals, our most fixed belief,
Are consequences of our place of birth:
Born beyond Ganges, I had been a Pagan;
In France, a Christian; I am here a Saracen :
'Tis but instruction, all! Our parents' hand
Writes on our heart the first faint characters,
Which time, re-tracing, deepens into strength,
That nothing can efface, but death or Heaven.
Tender-handed stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains.
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