[Page 243]

I AM OF A TEMPER FIXED AS A DECREE.

1 I AM of a temper fixed as a decree,
2 Resolv'd with myself to live happy and free;
3 With the cares of this world I am seldom perplex'd,
4 I am sometimes uneasy, but never quite vex'd;
5 I am neither too high nor too low in degree;
6 There are more that live worse than live better than me.
7 My life thus moves on amid freedom and ease,
8 I go where I will, and I come when I please;
9 I am plac'd below envy, and yet above spite;
10 I've judgment enough still to do myself right:
11 Some higher, some lower, I own there may be,
12 But ambition and want are both strangers to me.
13 When money comes in, pleas'd I live till 'tis gone,
14 I am happy when with it, contented with none;
15 If I spend it 'mong friends I count it but lent,
16 It thus goes genteelly β€” I never repent;
17 With mirth to my labour the hours sweetly pass,
18 Though at Saturday night I am just where I was.

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Title (in Source Edition): I AM OF A TEMPER FIXED AS A DECREE.
Themes:
Genres: song

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Blamire, Susanna, 1747-1794. The Poetical Works of Miss Susanna Blamire β€œThe muse of Cumberland.” Now for the first time collected by Henry Lonsdale, M.D. with a preface, memoir, and notes by Patrick Maxwell, ... Edinburgh: John Menzies, 61 Princes Street; R. Tyas, London; D. Robertson, Glasgow; and C. Thurnam, Carlisle. MDCCCXLII., 1842, p. 243.  (Page images digitized from a copy in the Bodleian Library [42.256].)

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Typography, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation have been cautiously modernized. The source of the text is given and all significant editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. This ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.

Other works by Susanna Blamire