This happy pair a certain bliss might prove, <br />Confin'd to constancy and mutual love: <br />Heaven to one object limited their vows, <br />The only safety faithless Nature knows. <br />God saw the wand'ring appetite would range, <br />And would have kept them from the pow'r to change; <br />But falsehood, soon as man increas'd, began; <br />Down through the race the swift contagion ran, <br />All ranks are tainted, all deceitful prove, <br />False in all shapes, but doubly false in love. <br />This makes the censure of the world more just, <br />That damns with shame the weakness of a trust! <br />Ere change began, our sex no scandal knew, <br />All nymphs were chaste as long as swains were true; <br />But now, tho' by the subtlest art betray'd, <br />We're so by custom and false maxims sway'd <br />That infamy still brands the injur'd maid.<br /><br />Lady Mary Wortley Montagu<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lines-written-in-a-blank-page-of-milton-s-paradi/
