I am trying to find the source of the following poem:
____________________

Modesty

Behold the daughter of innocence! 
How beautiful is the mildness of her countenance! 
How lovely is the diffidence of her looks! 
Her cheek is dyed with the deep crimson of the rose; her eye is placid
and serene, and the gentleness of her speech is as the melting
softness of the flute.
Her smiles are as the enlivening rays of the sun; the beauty of her
presence as the silver light of the moon.
Her attire is simple; her feet treadeth with caution, and she feareth
to give offence.
The young and the old are enamoured with her sweetness; she carrieth
her own commendation.
She speaketh not the first in the conversation of woman, neither is
her tongue heard among her companions.
She turnest not her head to gaze after the steps of men, she enquireth
not of them whither they are going.
She giveth not her opinion unasked, nor stoppeth her ears to that of another. 
She frequenteth not the public haunts of men, she enquireth not after
the knowledge improper for her condition.
So becoming is the behavior of modesty, so lovely among the daughters
of women! Is there any who hath forgotten to blush, who playeth with
the wanton glances of her eyes, who replenish the cup when the toast
goes round, and despiseth the meekness of her sister. Shame shall
overtake her in the prime of her days, and the years of her widowhood
shall be infamous as they are many.
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The first two lines appear on a sampler from England dated 1760, in my possession.

I found the entire poem quoted on:

http://www.gale.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=8656

which mentions it as coming from the Adams Centinel (Gettysburg, Pa.), 
08 June 1814, but it has to be mid-eighteenth century or older.

As bad as I hate to suggest it (because I personally despise them as a
source for information) Ancestry.com claims to have an archive of the
Adams Centinel issues online. You have to subscribe to find out if
they have anything worthy of your attention (thus my reason for not
liking them) but in the end - assuming you are not just being baited
in - it may be your only source for clues.

ANCESTRY.COM
http://content.ancestry.com/iexec/?htx=Newspaper&dbid=7243&ti=0

tutuzdad-ga

Thanks tutusdad for your kind suggestion. The idea did occur to me,
but I have serious doubts as to whether Adams Centinel in 1815 would
have been scrupulous enough to quote the source of the poem they
quoted.

I see I can consult the original document for $29.95 (a quarter's
subscription). This of course would be cheaper than my offer on Google
Answers, but if (as I think fairly likely) there is no enlightenment
as to the source, I am back where I started and $30 down!

I'll keep the question on the boil anyway: maybe an internaut will pop
up with the answer, and there is always the possibility that someone
is already subscribed to Ancestry.com...

There aren't many around like that any more:  the modest girl.
I tried to 17th and 18th c. English poets:  Dryden, Milton, Cowper,
Pope, but had no luck.  But quite possibly all their poems were not
online, for sure, I didn't want to register anywhere.
Saw the sampler, too, or a copy of it.  The text suggesting that a
mother made it for her daughter goes against the general understanding
that girls made samplers themselves, to have a record of the stitches
they knew AND also to demonstrate their proficiency.  Moralistic texts
were typical

Thanks myoarin: Were it a famous poet I would have thought to have
found it on the www without a problem. Dictionary of quotations no
help either, nor is it Biblical (although the style is
pseudo-Biblical). I bought the sampler some years ago from the owner
of the site you saw it on. Elizabeth Laidman is an ancestor, so I was
more than delighted to take possession of it! I agree that there is no
way a mother made it for her daughter... Nor can it have been
'invented' by the author of the sampler: that just didn't happen as
far as I know.

I'll just have to plug on!

Yellowlion,
What a nice family heirloom to find!  I hope Elizabeth's life showed
that she took the whole poem to heart.
Trying to do a little brainstorming:  You are right; if the poem had
been by a well-known poet, you'd probably have found it, and also, the
Adams Centinel would probably not have printed it, since it would have
been already known in America decades later.  But the poem must have
had a certain currency in England at the time for it to be known and
used on a sampler.  Perhaps by a religious leader or someone close to
the/a church, accounting for its spread??  I had no luck with my
feeble searching technigues on "innocence" and "daughter".
Frustrating.
Plog on, Myoarin

Well, there is only one more clue that I have not mentioned: there is
a reasonable possibility that this family was non-conformist, maybe
Quaker. This is purely based on the fact that Elizabeth's maternal
great grandparents, who both died ca 1700, were buried as Quakers. But
Elzabeth paternal grandfather, the Revd. John Laidman was a staunch
Church of England minister, so I don't know!

Thanks for all your input Tutuzdad: wish you could find the answer and
take the money!

Sorry Myoarin: of course I meant you and not tutuzdad!

Yes, indeed, the Quakers.  I had only been thinking Methodists (too
late) and Puritans.  I tried to find something, which was intertaining
but not fruitful.
If you are not entirely fixated on your poem, maybe you will also
appreciate this Quaker's comments.  Scroll down to the quoted  heading
on the site.  Smith would have been a great blogger.

Humphrey Smith
http://home.att.net/~quakart/texts/hs-orig.htm
"Concerning Poets, Jesters, Rhimers, and all that wanton crew."

And this one by Byron suggests that such girls really did exist  - and
were Quakers, well one such, anyway:
Lord Byron:  To a Beautiful Quaker
http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Lord_Byron/16265

Here is a 17th c. poetry site, but the links were not working for me:
http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/englisch/kurse/17c/backgrnd.htm

(Considering the threat at the end of your poem, I thought maybe a woman wrote it.)

Quaker Writings A-Z bibliography and many links:
http://www.qhpress.org/catalog/a-e.html

Another source for Quaker writings that are available online:
http://esr.earlham.edu/dqc/

I also looked at women poets of the 17th century, found one site with
a search facility, but the first line didn't find anything.

But not finding anything does not mean that it is not there.

It would be very nice if someone with a subscription to ancestry.com
would sign on and at least say if the author of the poem is given.

Good luck, Myoarin