Whether the darken'd room to muse invite, Or whiten'd wall provoke the skew'r to write; In durance, exile, Bedlam, or the Mint, Like Lee or Budgel I will rhyme and print.
Let sinful bachelors their woes deplore; full well they merit all they feel, and more: unaw by precepts, human or divine, like birds and beasts, promiscuously they join.
The time shall come, when, free as seas or wind, Unbounded Thames shall flow for all mankind, Whole nations enter with each swelling tide, And seas but join the regions they divide; Earth's distant ends our glory shall behold, And the new world launch forth to seek the old.
Such as are still observing upon others are like those who are always abroad at other men's houses, reforming everything there while their own runs to ruin.