[Page 195]

In Answer to a LADY who advised RETIREMENT.

By the Same.
1 YOU little know the heart that you advise;
2 I view this various scene with equal eyes:
3 In crowded courts I find myself alone,
4 And pay my worship to a nobler throne.
5 Long since the value of this world I know,
6 Pity the madness, and despise the show.
7 Well as I can my tedious part I bear,
8 And wait for my dismission without fear.
9 Seldom I mark mankind's detested ways,
10 Not hearing censure, nor affecting praise;
11 And, unconcern'd, my future state I trust
12 To that sole Being, merciful and just.

Text

  • TEI/XML [chunk] (XML - 29K / ZIP - 3.9K) / ECPA schema (RNC - 357K / ZIP - 73K)
  • Plain text [excluding paratexts] (TXT - 548 / ZIP - 534 )

Facsimile (Source Edition)

(Page images digitized by the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive from a copy in the archive's library.)

Images

PDF

All Images (PDF - 668K)

About this text

Title (in Source Edition): In Answer to a LADY who advised RETIREMENT.
Author: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (née Pierrepont)
Themes: retirement; hopelessness; vanity of life; God
Genres: heroic couplet; answer/reply
References: DMI 25745

Text view / Document view

Source edition

Dodsley, Robert, 1703-1764. A Collection of Poems in Six Volumes. By Several Hands. Vol. IV. London: printed by J. Hughs, for R. and J. Dodsley, 1763 [1st ed. 1758], p. 195. 6v.: music; 8⁰. (ESTC T131163; OTA K104099.004) (Page images digitized by the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive from a copy in the archive's library.)

Editorial principles

The text has been typographically modernized, but without any silent modernization of spelling, capitalization, or punctuation. The source of the text is given and all editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. Based on the electronic text originally produced by the TCP project, 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.