SONG 5. The Country Wedding

Come haste to the wedding, ye friends and ye neighbours, The lovers their bliss can no longer delay: Forget all your sorrows, your cares, and your labours, And let ev'ry heart beat with rapture to day. Come, come, one and all, Attend to my call, And revel in pleasures that never can cloy; Come see Rural felicity, Which love and innocence ever enjoy. Come see, &c.

Let envy and pride, let hate and ambition, Still crowd to, and bias the breasts of the great; To such wretched passions we give no admission, But leave them alone to the wise ones of state, We boast of no wealth, But contentment and health; In mirth and in friendship our moments employ. Come see, &c.

With reason we taste of each heart-stirring pleasure; With reason, we drink of the full-flowing bowl, Are jocund and gay, but all within measure, For fatal excess but enslaves the free soul. Come, come at our bidding, To this happy wedding, No care shall obtrude here, our bliss to annoy. Come see, &c.