Fair Ladies are Delicate Things - Dugald Buchanan

                    [1.]

Fair Ladies are Delicate Things

The Pleasure and Joy of Man’s Life

Companions for Nobles & Kings

And who would not have a Good Wife¹

                    [2.]

Sir Richard² well what do you mean

Are they not the fair Authors of Strife

What impudent Jades have I seen

And who would be plaug’d with a Wife

                    [ 3.]

When we are incumbered with Care

They help to support a man’s life

The half of the Burden they Share

And who could not have a Good Wife

                    [4.]

They plunder our Silver & Gold

And trifle about to the life

And often are given to Scold

And who would be Plaugd wt a Wife

                     [5.]

You’re turned a quarrelsome Elf

So full of Contention & Strife

You have come from a Woman yourself

And why Should you hate a good Wife

                       [6.]

I hate not a Woman he Cry’d

But oh! the Sad name of a Wife

I cannot endure to be ty’d

A Slave all the Days of my life

---

Dugald Buchanan (1716 - 1768) Scotland

Source: Passages from Time

1. The last two lines of each stanza are repeated
2. Possibly Sir Richard Steele (1672-1729), co-founder of The Spectator, and a playwright and author whose themes included women and ethics, and who visited Scotland in 1717