A Dialogue (1)

Silviana

Ye happy kind Mortals, ye Married folks, say

When the other dear half of your hearts is away,

If all the soft pleasures you talk of in Love

Can balance the pain which in absence you prove?

If you would but confess ’em, how gloomy your hours!

How great your anxieties, troubles and cares!

What endless perplexities torture your breast!

Can happiness dwell in a heart without rest?

Is he well? is he safe? oft you ask with a sigh:

Another sigh echoes the louder reply.

What scenes of distraction wild fancy supplies,

And dangers and terrors from robbers arise,

Till reason, returning, assumes his lost sway,

And patience and hope linger thro’ the long day.

Love and happiness join’d – the idea how vain!

Near akin to each other as pleasure and pain.

Can passion and peace ever dwell in one heart?

Fate has joined love and care and they never can part.

Amira

Ye happy free mortals, ye single folks, say

Do you feel no pain? don’t your hearts run away

Sometimes from your reason and secretly love

Some swain whom your judgment can never approve?

No doubt but in wedlock there’s plenty of fears,

But, if they would own it, han’t single folks cares?

Some lurking disquietude racking their breast?

Some love in a corner oft breaking their rest?

If in absence we married folks frequently sigh,

I fancy your bosoms can heave in reply:

If our minds with strange whimsy wild fancy supplies,

What terrour from wrinkles in yours must arise!

For with beauty is lost your tyrannical sway:

Then, spinsters, be wise and improve your short day!

But as pride love and beauty are equally vain,

And since, married or single, you’ll surely find pain,

As well you may peaceably yield up your heart,

And in every care let a Husband take part.

Silviana

We yet have the best on’t, what e’er you can say:

If our hearts should by chance for a whim run away,

Soon Reason recalls and forbids them to love,

Till Judgment and Fancy can join to approve.

In Wedlock you own there is plenty of fears:

How little to these are the single folks’ cares!

If Love in a corner can hinder the rest,

Alas for poorWives, where it fills the whole breast!

In absence so mournful you breath the soft sigh:

Our bosoms compassionate heave in reply;

More whimsical terrors your fondness supplies

Than ever from wrinkles can possibly rise.

If spinsters with beauty must soon lose their sway,

Wives give up their freedom in one fatal day !

But tho’ pride, love and beauty are equally vain,

And, married or single, all must have some pain,

Unless I am fated to yield up my heart,

Can I wish to be wretched and double my part?

Amira

I submit to your power I acknowledge your wit

For I find if I bite I shall surely be bit.

Well if you have the best on’t much good may it do ye;

But that’s mere pretence, as I think I can shew ye.

That whim in your breast will be uppermost still,

Call in reason and judgment or do what you will;

And if once you let judgment and fancy approve,

Then the wedlock you rail at soon follows your love –

Unless Damon prove false: then what numberless cares,

What pangs of disquietude fall to your shares!

Pride, love and resentment by turns sack your breast,

And fill it so full you’ve no quiet or rest.

Then your care to conceal it increases your pain;

But folks that are married have no need to feign.

You pretend when you sigh you’re compassionate grown;

But perhaps ’tis for Husbands, if truth were but known.

So you banter our fondness, but secretly find

(Most likely) that fondness tormenting your mind;

So you rail at our free resignation of power

As the fox at the grapes when he said they were sower;

And if marriage is wretchedness, feigning apart,

As fate and wild fancy does govern the heart,

Most spinsters would fain have that wretchedness theirs

As they fancy a Husband would lessen their cares.

Silviana

At length, dear Amira, all jesting apart,

Sincerely disclose the true sense of your heart.

I suspect that some reason, deep hid in your breast,

Induce you to answer me only in jest:

You slily evade what you cannot make out,

Lose sight of the question and ramble about.

So obstinate heroes will, rather than yield,

Still flourish their weapons and travers the field.

The question permit me again to repeat:

No longer behind your evasions retreat,

But seriously say, can the pleasures you find

While friendship and Love of two makes but one mind,

Compensate the troubles which fill the fond heart

Or balance the pain of that dreadful word part?

In one scale your losses in th’ other your gain:

Say which will preponderate, pleasure or pain?

Amira

Sincerely disclose the true sense of my heart?

Why, sure ’tis enough if I tell you but part:

And as to the reasons deep hid in my breast,

There let ’em remain – if I write I must jest.

If I by evasions a line can make out,

’Twill do, for poor poets must ramble about,

As Cowards in danger, tho’ ready to yield,

Yet may flourish their weapons and travers the field.

But as to the question again you repeat,

Suppose I no longer should hide or retreat

But honestly answer: pray what should I find

To reward my sincerity? have you a mind,

After knowing the truth on’t, to give up your heart

To pronounce those dread words “untill death us do part”?

If that’s your design, and I’m likely to gain

A convert to wedlock by hiding of pain,

Then I’ll tell you: the pleasure of “love and obey”

Excell those of freedom as darkness does day.

Silviana

Amira his advocate Cupid will choose

To plead for the chains which she never can lose,

And peeps o’er her shoulder so slily and grins,

And, proud of his mischief, cries “Laugh he that wins!

“How many fond couples are slaves to my sway; )

“And those that defy me, all frolick and gay, )

“Or sooner or later my reign shall obey. )

“But one potent enemy puzzles my art: )

“Grave Reason, who guards the considerate heart, )

“My conquest prevents and repells my best dart. )

“Now could I but find, since my strength won’t avail,

“Some lucky contrivance by fraud to prevail!

“How boundless my empire, could Reason be beat!

“O now I have hit it (for sure I can cheat):

“With well feign’d submission I’ll bow to my foe,

“And tell him his merit I’ve known long ago,

“And humbly entreat that we two may be friends;

“And I’ll take his directions, to serve my own ends.

“But when I’ve convinced him my friendship is true,

“And sooth’d him, Amira, as once I sooth’d you

“I’ll fetter him fast – and – friend Reason, adieu!”

Amira

As to filling up rhymes, I don’t know what to say:

My senses are stupid, my witts flown away;

But suppose Silviana should happen to love –

Should meet with a swain whom her heart should approve:

In courtship and wedlock she’d surely find cares,

And in absence anxieties, wishes and fears,

With pittipatations disturbing your breast,

And (when not very sleepy) perhaps break your rest;

You’d think of your dear’ee and heave a soft sigh,

And fancy each whistling wind a reply;

For love with strange fancies the mind still supplies

(As wonderfull whimsies from vapours arise):

When once this rogue Love in your breast bears the sway,

Each hour’s short absence you’ll think is a day.

Wishing time to fly faster tho’ wishes are vain;

In short you’d think absence a mighty great pain,

And, pretend what you will. you would wish from your heart

That you and your precious was never to part.

Text: The poem appears, in the order given above, in STE 3/3/1, starting p. 38; three parts of it appear in STE 3/3/7, as no. 15, [no. 15b] (not noted in the catalogue), and no. 16, MS, Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regents Park College; the poem first published in Nonconformist Women Writers, vol. 2 (ed. Julia B. Griffin), pp. 195-99.