Introduction, The (Poem). 
By Finch, Anne (Countess of Winchilsea). 


Did I my lines intend for public view
How many censures would their faults pursue!
Some would, because such words they do affect,
Cry they're insipid, empty, incorrect.
And many have attained, dull and untaught,
The name of wit, only by finding fault.
True judges might condemn their want of wit;
And all might say, they're by a woman writ.
Alas! a woman that attempts the pen,
- Such an intruder on the rights of men! - 
Such a presumptuous creature is esteemed,
The fault can by no virtue be redeemed.
They tell us we mistake our sex and way:
Good breeding, fashion, dancing, dressing, play,
Are the accomplishments we should desire;
To write, or read, or think, or to inquire,
Would cloud our beauty, and exhaust our time,
And interrupt the conquests of our prime;
Whilst the dull manage of a servile house
Is held by some our utmost art and use.

Sure 'twas not ever thus; nor are we told
Fables of women that excelled of old,
To whom, by the diffusive hand of heaven,
Some share of wit and poetry was given.
On that glad day on which the Ark returned
The holy pledge, for which the land had mourned,
The joyful tribes attend it on the way,
The Levites do the sacred charge convey,
Whilst various instruments before it play;
Here, holy virgins in the concert join,
The louder notes to soften and refine,
And with alternate verse complete the hymn divine.

Lo! the young poet, after God's own heart,
By Him inspired and taught the Muses' art,
Returned from conquest a bright chorus meets,
That sing his slain ten thousand in the streets.
In such loud numbers they his acts declare,
Proclaim the wonders of his early war,
That Saul upon the vast applause does frown,
And feels its mighty thunder shake the crown.
What can the threatened judgment now prolong?
Half of the kingdom is already gone:
The fairest half, whose judgment guides the rest,
Have David's empire o'er their hearts confessed.

A woman here leads fainting Israel on.
She fights, she wins, she triumphs with a song,
Devout, majestic, for the subject fit,
And far above her arms exalts her wit;
Then to the peaceful shady palm withdraws,
And rules the rescued nation with her laws.

How are we fallen! fallen by mistaken rules,
And Education's, more than Nature's, fools;
Debarred from all improvements of the mind,
And to be dull, expected and designed;
And if some one would soar above the rest,
With warmer fancy, and ambition pressed,
So strong the opposing faction still appears,
The hopes to thrive can ne'er outweigh the fears.
Be cautioned, then, my Muse, and still retired;
Nor be despised, aiming to be admired;
Conscious of wants, still with contracted wing,
To some few friends and to thy sorrows sing.
For groves of laurel thou wert never meant:
Be dark enough thy shades, and be thou there content.