Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear

A little Learning is a dang'rous Thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring: There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.

'Tis fixed, the irrevocable doom of Jove; No force can bend me, no persuasion move.

Happy the man whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air In his own ground.

Well, if our author in the wife offends He has a husband that will make amends; He draws him gentle, tender, and forgiving, And sure such kind good creatures may be living.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown; Thus unlamented let me die; Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.

They dream in Courtship, but in Wedlock wake.