That ring, the token of his pride and state,Was with a heavy gauntlet hid of late:Canst thou have commerce with a thing so foul!Where's now the boasted niceness of thy soul?What pleasure canst thou in his roughness find?Thou that wert once the softest of thy kind!Behold what marks of brutal rage he bears,And how he's mangled with dishonest scars.Yet to these scars, dishonest as they are,His wealth he owes, his fortunes with the fair.No doubt, he makes a merit of his guilt,And brags what blood he has in battle spilt.Fine courtship this, to win a gentle dame;Thou shar'st his money, and must share his shame.Me, not the meanest of Apollo's train,She hates, and I repeat my verse in vain;I sing before her gate; her gate I findIs less obdurate than her harden'd mind.Forbear your songs, Apollo's sons, forbear,And bend your future thoughts to arms and war.