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Home  »  The World’s Best Poetry  »  A Maiden’s Ideal of a Husband

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

II. Love’s Nature

A Maiden’s Ideal of a Husband

Henry Carey (1687?–1743)

From “The Contrivances”

GENTEEL in personage,

Conduct, and equipage,

Noble by heritage,

Generous and free:

Brave, not romantic;

Learned, not pedantic;

Frolic, not frantic;

This must he be.

Honor maintaining,

Meanness disdaining,

Still entertaining.

Engaging and new.

Neat, but not finical;

Sage, but not cynical;

Never tyrannical,

But ever true.