title: Answer to a poetical invitation to remove to a frontier settlement
author: Henry Livingston Jr.
date: undated (MS book, c. 1785-86)
source: Henry Livingston's manuscript poetry book (Thomas Collection; scans and transcription on henrylivingston.com), p. 25 (headnote: "A friend had wrote his wife a poetical invitation to remove to a frontier settlement. The following proposed as her answer."). URL: https://www.henrylivingston.com/writing/poetry/settle.htm (fetched via https://web.archive.org/web/20250522014525/https://www.henrylivingston.com/writing/poetry/settle.htm)
form: iambic pentameter
lines: 26
attribution: certain
notes: Serious, in the voice of a wife answering her husband. Site heading/headnote: A friend had wrote his wife a poetical invitation | to remove to a frontier settlement. | The following proposed as her answer. MS scan: https://www.henrylivingston.com/writing/poetry/doublepages/doublepage24-25.htm

YES, yes my swain, thy faithful wife's prepar'd
To hie to that dear cot thy hands have rear'd.
Tho there the way-worn pilgrim can't behold
The Cornich blazing with the fretted gold;
Altho no damask curtain gives the day
Its crimson tint, and sheds the purple ray;
Altho no surly porter stands in state
To guard the sumptuous and unsocial gate;
Tho thousand and ten thousand trivial things
Which Lux'ry and her sister Folly brings,
Be wanting there - yet there! Yet there I'll find
That richest furniture! A quiet mind.

With my own swain, unsever'd from my side,
Adown the stream of life I'll joyous glide.
Tho the brown horrors of the nodding wood --
Or -- brilliant landscapes dance upon the flood;
Thro each vicissitude I'll boldly steer,
Whilst Thou my love, my life, my all, art near.

Yes yes, my swain thy faithful wife will go,
With Thee thro summers heat, or winter's snow:
Where'er high Heav'n and you point out the way
Nor wish, nor ask, a moment's fond delay.
Clung to thy arm, with brighter scenes in view
I'll catch thy flame & feel thy raptures too!

To that dear cot thy hands have rear'd I'll hie,
Live with my swain & with my swain will die.