CCXXIX.
Reading edition
LET NOT WOMAN E’ER COMPLAIN.
Tune—“Duncan Gray.”
[“These English songs,” thus complains the poet, in the letter which conveyed this lyric to Thomson, “gravel me to death: I have not that command of the language that I have of my native tongue. I have been at ‘Duncan Gray,’ to dress it in English, but all I can do is deplorably stupid. For instance:”]
I.
Let not woman e’er complain Of inconstancy in love; Let not woman e’er complain Fickle man is apt to rove: Look abroad through nature’s range, Nature’s mighty law is change; Ladies, would it not be strange, Man should then a monster prove?
II.
Mark the winds, and mark the skies; Ocean’s ebb, and ocean’s flow: Sun find moon but set to rise, Round and round the seasons go: Why then ask of silly man To oppose great nature’s plan? We’ll be constant while we can— You can be no more, you know.