[ { "title": "Tunbridge Wells", "author": "John Wilmot", "lines": [ "At five this morn, when Phoebus raised his head", "From Thetis' lap, I raised myself from bed,", "And mounting steed, I trotted to the waters", "The rendesvous of fools, buffoons, and praters,", "Cuckolds, whores, citizens, their wives and daughters.", "", "My squeamish stomach I with wine had bribed", "To undertake the dose that was prescribed;", "But turning head, a sudden curséd view", "That innocent provision overthrew,", "And without drinking, made me purge and spew.", "From coach and six a thing unweildy rolled,", "Whose lumber, card more decently would hold.", "As wise as calf it looked, as big as bully,", "But handled, proves a mere Sir Nicholas Cully;", "A bawling fop, a natural Nokes, and yet", "He dares to censure as if he had wit.", "To make him more ridiculous, in spite", "Nature contrived the fool should be a knight.", "Though he alone were dismal signet enough,", "His train contributed to set him off,", "All of his shape, all of the selfsame stuff.", "No spleen or malice need on them be thrown:", "Nature has done the business of lampoon,", "And in their looks their characters has shown.", "", "Endeavoring this irksome sight to balk,", "And a more irksome noise, their silly talk,", "I silently slunk down t' th' Lower Walk,", "But often when one would Charybdis shun,", "Down upon Scilla 'tis one's fate to run,", "For here it was my curséd luck to find", "As great a fop, though of another kind,", "A tall stiff fool that walked in Spanish guise:", "The buckram puppet never stirred its eyes,", "But grave as owl it looked, as woodcock wise.", "He scorns the empty talking of this mad age,", "And speaks all proverbs, sentences, and adage;", "Can with as much solemnity buy eggs", "As a cabal can talk of their intrigues;", "Master o' th' Ceremonies, yet can dispense", "With the formality of talking sense.", "", "From hence unto the upper walk I ran,", "Where a new scene of foppery began.", "A tribe of curates, priests, canonical elves,", "Fit company for none besides themselves,", "Were got together. Each his distemper told,", "Scurvy, stone, strangury; some were so bold", "To charge the spleen to be their misery,", "And on that wise disease brought infamy.", "But none had modesty enough t' complain", "Their want of learning, honesty, and brain,", "The general diseases of that train.", "These call themselves ambassadors of heaven,", "And saucily pretend commissions given;", "But should an Indian king, whose small command", "Seldom extends beyond ten miles of land,", "Send forth such wretched tools in an ambassage,", "He'd find but small effects of such a message.", "Listening, I found the cob of all this rabble", "Pert Bays, with his importance comfortable.", "He, being raised to an archdeaconry", "By trampling on religion, liberty,", "Was grown to great, and looked too fat and jolly,", "To be disturbed with care and melancholy,", "Though Marvell has enough exposed his folly.", "He drank to carry off some old remains", "His lazy dull distemper left in 's veins.", "Let him drink on, but 'tis not a whole flood", "Can give sufficient sweetness to his blood", "To make his nature of his manners good.", "", "Next after these, a fulsome Irish crew", "Of silly Macs were offered to my view.", "The things did talk, but th' hearing what they said", "I did myself the kindness to evade.", "Nature has placed these wretches beneath scorn:", "They can't be called so vile as they are born.", "Amidst the crowd next I myself conveyed,", "For now were come, whitewash and paint being laid,", "Mother and daughter, mistress and the maid,", "And squire with wig and pantaloon displayed.", "But ne'er could conventicle, play, or fair", "For a true medley, with this herd compare.", "Here lords, knights, squires, ladies and countesses,", "Chandlers, mum-bacon women, sempstresses", "Were mixed together, nor did they agree", "More in their humors than their quality.", "", "Here waiting for gallant, young damsel stood,", "Leaning on cane, and muffled up in hood.", "The would-be wit, whose business was to woo,", "With hat removed and solemn scrape of shoe", "Advanceth bowing, then genteelly shrugs,", "And ruffled foretop into order tugs,", "And thus accosts her: \"Madam, methinks the weather", "Is grown much more serene since you came hither.", "You influence the heavens; but should the sun", "Withdraw himself to see his rays outdone", "By your bright eyes, they would supply the morn,", "And make a day before the day be born.\"", "With mouth screwed up, conceited winking eyes,", "And breasts thrust forward, \"Lord, sir!\" she replies.", "\"It is your goodness, and not my deserts,", "Which makes you show this learning, wit, and parts.\"", "He, puzzled, butes his nail, both to display", "The sparkling ring, and think what next to say,", "And thus breaks forth afresh: \"Madam, egad!", "Your luck at cards last night was very bad:", "At cribbage fifty-nine, and the next show", "To make the game, and yet to want those two.", "God damn me, madam, I'm the son of a whore", "If in my life I saw the like before!\"", "To peddler's stall he drags her, and her breast", "With hearts and such-like foolish toys he dressed;", "And then, more smartly to expound the riddle", "Of all his prattle, gives her a Scotch fiddle.", "", "Tired with this dismal stuff, away I ran", "Where were two wives, with girl just fit for man -", "Short-breathed, with pallid lips and visage wan.", "Some curtsies past, and the old compliment", "Of being glad to see each other, spent,", "With hand in hand they lovingly did walk,", "And one began thus to renew the talk:", "\"I pray, good madam, if it may be thought", "No rudeness, what cause was it hither brought", "Your ladyship?\" She soon replying, smiled,", "\"We have a good estate, but have no child,", "And I'm informed these wells will make a barren", "Woman as fruitful as a cony warren.\"", "The first returned, \"For this cause I am come,", "For I can have no quietness at home.", "My husband grumbles though we have got one,", "This poor young girl, and mutters for a son.", "And this is grieved with headache, pangs, and throes;", "Is full sixteen, and never yet had those.\"", "She soon replied, \"Get her a husband, madam:", "I married at that age, and ne'er had 'em;", "Was just like her. Steel waters let alone:", "A back of steel will bring 'em better down.\"", "And ten to one but they themselves will try", "The same means to increase their family.", "Poor foolish fribble, who by subtlety", "Of midwife, truest friend to lechery,", "Persuaded art to be at pains and charge", "To give thy wife occasion to enlarge", "Thy silly head! For here walk Cuff and Kick,", "With brawny back and legs and potent prick,", "Who more substantially will cure thy wife,", "And on her half-dead womb bestow new life.", "From these the waters got the reputation", "Of good assistants unto generation.", "", "Some warlike men were now got into th' throng,", "With hair tied back, singing a bawdy song.", "Not much afraid, I got a nearer view,", "And 'twas my chance to know the dreadful crew.", "They were cadets, that seldom can appear:", "Damned to the stint of thirty pounds a year.", "With hawk on fist, or greyhound led in hand,", "The dogs and footboys sometimes they command.", "But now, having trimmed a cast-off spavined horse,", "With three hard-pinched-for guineas in their purse,", "Two rusty pistols, scarf about the arse,", "Coat lined with red, they here presume to swell:", "This goes for captain, that for colonel.", "So the Bear Garden ape, on his steed mounted,", "No longer is a jackanapes accounted,", "But is, by virtue of his trumpery, then", "Called by the name of \"the young gentleman.\"", "", "Bless me! thought I, what thing is man, that thus", "In all his shapes, he is ridiculous?", "Ourselves with noise of reason we do please", "In vain: humanity's our worst disease.", "Thrice happy beasts are, who, because they be", "Of reason void, and so of foppery.", "Faith, I was so ashamed that with remorse", "I used the insolence to mount my horse;", "For he, doing only things fit for his nature,", "Did seem to me by much the wiser creature." ], "linecount": "175" }, { "title": "Love and Life", "author": "John Wilmot", "lines": [ "All my past life is mine no more,", "The flying hours are gone,", "Like transitory dreams giv'n o'er,", "Whose images are kept in store", "By memory alone.", "", "The time that is to come is not;", "How can it then be mine?", "The present moment's all my lot;", "And that, as fast as it is got,", "Phyllis, is only thine.", "", "Then talk not of inconstancy,", "False hearts, and broken vows;", "If I, by miracle, can be", "This live-long minute true to thee,", "'Tis all that Heav'n allows." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "To This Moment a Rebel", "author": "John Wilmot", "lines": [ "To this moment a rebel I throw down my arms,", "Great Love, at first sight of Olinda's bright charms.", "Make proud and secure by such forces as these,", "You may now play the tyrant as soon as you please.", "", "When Innocence, Beauty, and Wit do conspire", "To betray, and engage, and inflame my Desire,", "Why should I decline what I cannot avoid?", "And let pleasing Hope by base Fear be destroyed?", "", "Her innocence cannot contrive to undo me,", "Her beauty's inclined, or why should it pursue me?", "And Wit has to Pleasure been ever a friend,", "Then what room for Despair, since Delight is Love's end?", "", "There can be no danger in sweetness and youth,", "Where Love is secured by good nature and truth;", "On her beauty I'll gaze and of pleasure complain", "While every kind look adds a link to my chain.", "", "'Tis more to maintain than it was to surprise,", "But her Wit leads in triumpth the slave of her eyes;", "I beheld, with the loss of my freedom before,", "But hearing, forever must serve and adore.", "", "Too bright is my Goddess, her temple too weak:", "Retire, divine image! I feel my heart break.", "Help, Love! I dissolve in a rapture of charms", "At the thought of those joys I should meet in her arms." ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "A Letter from Artemesia in the Town to Chloe in the Country", "author": "John Wilmot", "lines": [ "Chloe,", "", "In verse by your command I write.", "Shortly you'll bid me ride astride, and fight:", "These talents better with our sex agree", "Than lofty flights of dangerous poetry.", "Amongst the men, I mean the men of wit", "(At least they passed for such before they writ),", "How many bold adventureers for the bays,", "Proudly designing large returns of praise,", "Who durst that stormy, pathless world explore,", "Were soon dashed back, and wrecked on the dull shore,", "Broke of that little stock they had before!", "How would a woman's tottering bark be tossed", "Where stoutest ships, the men of wit, are lost?", "When I reflect on this, I straight grow wise,", "And my own self thus gravely I advise:", "--Dear Artemesia, poetry's a snare;", "Bedlam has many mansions; have a care.", "Your muse diverts you, makes the reader sad:", "Consider, too, 'twill be discreetly done", "To make yourself the fiddle of the town,", "To find th' ill-humored pleasure at their need,", "Cursed if you fail, and scorned though you succeed!", "Thus, like an errant woman as I am,", "No sooner well convinced writing's a shame,", "That whore is scarce a more reproachful name", "Than poetess-", "Like men that marry, or like maids that woo,", "'Cause 'tis the very worst thing they can do,", "Pleased with the contradiction and the sin,", "Methinks I stand n thorns till I begin.", "--Y' expect at least to hear what loves have passed", "In this lewd town, since you and I met last;", "What change has happened of intrigues, and whether", "The old ones last, and who and who's together.", "But how, my dearest Chloe, shall I set", "My pet to write what I would fain forget?", "Or name that lost thing, love, without a tear,", "Since so debauched by ill-bred customs here?", "Love, the most generous passion of the mind,", "The softest refuge innocence can find,", "The safe director of unguided youth,", "Fraught with kind wishes, and secured by truth;", "That cordial drop heaven in our cup has thrown", "To make the nauseous draught of life go down;", "On which one only blessing; God might raise", "In lands of atheists, subsidies of praise,", "For none did e'er so dull and stupid prove", "But felt a god, and blessed his power in love -", "This only joy for which poor we were made", "Is grown, like play, to be an arrant trade.", "The rooks creep in, and it has got of late", "As many little cheats and tricks as that.", "--But what yet more a woman's heart would vex,", "'Tis chiefly carried on by our own sex;", "Our silly sex! who, born like monarchs free,", "turn gypsies for a meaner liberty,", "And hate restraint, though but from infamy.", "They call whatever is not common, nice,", "And deaf to nature's rule, or love's advice,", "Forsake the pleasure to pursue the vice.", "To an exact perfection they have wrought", "The action, love; the passion is forgot.", "'Tis below wit, they tell you, to admire,", "And ev'n without approving, they desire.", "Their private wish obeys the public vice;", "'Twixt good and bad, whimsey decides, not choice.", "Fashions grow up for taste; at forms they strike;", "They know what they would have, not what they like.", "Bovey's a beauty, of some few agree", "To call him so; the rest to that degree", "Affected are, that with their ears they see.", "--Where I was visiting the other night", "Comes a fine lady, with her humble knight,", "Who had prevailed on her, through her own skill,", "At his request, thought much against his will,", "To come to London.", "As the coach stopped, we heard her voice, more loud", "Than a great-bellied woman's in a crowd,", "Telling the knight that her affairs require", "He, for some hours, obsequiously retire.", "I think she was ashamed to have him seen:", "Hard fate of husbands! The gallant had been,", "Though a diseased, ill-favored fool, brought in.", "\"Dispatch,\" says she, \"that business you pretend,", "Your beastly visit to your drunken friend!", "A bottle ever makes you look so fine;", "Methinks I long to smell you stink of wine!", "Your country drinking breath's enough to kill:", "Sour ale corrected with a lemon peel.", "Prithee, farewell! We'll meet again anon.\"", "The necessary thing bows, and is gone.", "--She flies upstairs, and all the haste does show", "That fifty antic postures will allow,", "And then bursts out: \"Dear madam, am not I", "The altered'st creature breathing? Let me die,", "I find myself ridiculously grown,", "Embarassee with being out of town,", "Rude and untaught like any Indian queen:", "My country nakedness is strangely seen.", "--\"How is love governed, love that rules the state,", "And pray, who are the men most worn of late?", "When I was married, fools were a la mode.", "The men of wit were then held incommode,", "Slow of belief, and fickle in desire,", "Who, ere they'll be persuaded, must inquire", "As if they came to spy, not to admire.", "With searching wisdom, fatal to their ease,", "They still find out why what may, should not please;", "Nay, take themselves for injured when we dare", "Make 'em think better of us than we are,", "And if we hide our frailties from their sights,", "Call us deceitful jilts and hypocrites.", "They little guess, who at our arts are grieved,", "The perfect joy of being well deceived;", "Inquisitive as jealous cuckolds grow:", "Rather than not be knowing, they will know", "What, being known, creates their certain woe.", "Women should these, of all mankind avoid,", "For wonder by clear knowledge is destroyed.", "Woman, who is an arrant bird of knight,", "Bold in the dusk before a fool's dull sight,", "Should fly when reason brings the glaring light.", "--\"But the kind, easy fool, apt to admire", "Himself, trusts us; his follies all conspire", "To flatter his, and favor our desire.", "Vain of his proper merit, he with ease", "Believes we love him best who best can please.", "On him our gross, dull, common flatteries pass,", "Ever most joyful when most made an ass.", "Heavy to apprehend, though all mankind", "Perceive us false, the fop concerned is blind,", "Who, doting on himself,", "Thinks everyone that sees him of his mind.", "These are true women's men.\"", "", "-------------------------- Here forced to cease", "Through want of breath, not will to hold her peace,", "She to the window runs, where she had spied", "Her much esteemed dear friend, the monkey, tied.", "With forty smiles, as many antic bows,", "As if 't had been the lady of the house,", "The dirty, chattering monster she embraced,", "And made it this fine, tender speech at last:", "\"Kiss me, thou curious miniature of man!", "How odd thou art! how pretty! how japan!", "Oh, I could live and die with thee!\" Then on", "For half an hour in compliment she run.", "--I took this time to think what nature meant", "When this mixed thing into the world she sent,", "So very wise, yet so impertinent:", "One who knew everything; who, God thought fit,", "Should be an ass through choice, not want of wit;", "Whose foppery, without the help of sense,", "Could ne'er have rose to such an excellence.", "Nature's as lame in making a true fop", "As a philosopher; the very top", "And dignity of folly we attain", "By studious search, and labor of the brain,", "By observation, counsel, and deep thought:", "God never made a coxcomb worth a groat.", "We owe that name to industry and arts:", "An eminent fool must be a fool of parts.", "And such a one was she, who had turned o'er", "As many books as men; loved much, read more;", "Had a discerning wit; to her was known", "Everyone's fault and merit, but her own.", "All the good qualities that ever blessed", "A woman so distinguished from the rest,", "Except discretion only, she possessed.", "--But now, \"Mon cher dear Pug,\" she cries, \"adieu!\"", "And the discourse broke off does thus renew:", "--\"You smile to see me, whom the world perchance", "Mistakes to have some wit, so far advance", "The interest of fools, that I approve", "Their merit, more than men's of wit, in love.", "But, in our sex, too many proofs there are", "Of such whom wits undo, and fools repair.", "This, in my time, was so observed a rule", "Hardly a wench in town but had her fool.", "The meanest common slut, who long was grown", "The jest and scorn of every pit buffoon,", "Had yet left charms enough to have subdued", "Some fop or other, fond to be thought lewd.", "Foster could make an Irish lord a Nokes,", "And Betty Morris had her City cokes.", "A woman's ne'er so ruined but she can", "Be still revenged on her undoer, man;", "How lost so'er, she'll find some lover, more", "A lewd, abandoned fool than she a whore.", "--\"That wretched thing Corinna, who had run", "Through all the several ways of being undone,", "Cozened at first by love, and living then", "By turning the too dear-bought trick on men -", "Gay were the hours, and winged with joys they flew,", "When first the town her early beauties knew;", "Courted, admired, and loved, with presents fed;", "Youth in her looks, and pleasure in her bed;", "Till fate, or her ill angel, thought it fit", "To make her dote upon a man of wit,", "Who found 'twas dull to love above a day;", "Made his ill-natured jest, and went away.", "Now scorned by all, forsaken, and oppressed,", "She's a momento mori to the rest;", "Diseased, decayed, to take up half a crown", "Must mortgage her long scarf and manteau gown.", "Poor creature! who, unheard of as a fly,", "In some dark hole must all the winter lie,", "And want and dirt endure a while half year", "That for one month she tawdry may appear.", "--\"In Easter Term she gets her a new gown,", "When my young master's worship comes to town,", "From pedagogue and mother just set free,", "The heir and hopes of a great family;", "Which, with strong ale and beef, the country rules,", "And ever since the Conquest have been fools.", "And now, with careful prospect to maintain", "The character, lest crossing of the strain", "Should mend the booby breed, his friends provide", "A cousin of his own to be his bride.", "And thus set out", "With an estate, no wit, and a young wife", "(The solid comforts of a coxcomb's life),", "Dunghill and pease forsook, he comes to town,", "Turns spark, learns to be lewd, and is undone.", "Nothing suits worse with vice than want of sense:", "Fools are still wicked at their own expense.", "--\"This o'ergrown schoolboy lost Corinna wins,", "And at first dash to make an ass begins:", "Pretends to like a man who has not known", "The vanities nor vices of the town;", "Fresh in his youth, and faithful in his love;", "Eager of joys which he does seldom prove;", "Healthful and strong, he does no pains endure", "But what the fair one he adores can cure;", "Grateful for favors, does the sex esteem,", "And libels none for being kind to him;", "Then of the lewdness of the times complains:", "Rails at the wits and atheists, and maintains", "'Tis better than good sense, than power or wealth,", "To have a love untainted, youth, and health.", "--\"The unbred puppy, who had never seen", "A creature look so gay, or talk so fine,", "Believes, then falls in love, and then in debt;", "Mortgages all, ev'n to the ancient seat,", "To buy this mistress a new house for life;", "To give her plate and jewels, robs his wife.", "And when t' th' height of fondness he is grown,", "'Tis time to poison him, and all's her own.", "Thus meeting in her common arms his fate,", "He leaves her bastard heir to his estate,", "And, as the race of such an owl deserves,", "His own dull lawful progeny he starves.", "--\"Nature, who never made a thing in vain,", "But does each insect to some end ordain,", "Wisely contrived kind keeping fools, no doubt,", "To patch up vices men of wit wear out.\"", "Thus she ran on two hours, some grains of sense", "Still mixed with volleys of impertinence.", "--But now 'tis time I should some pity show", "To Chloe, since I cannot choose but know", "Readers must reap the dullness writers sow.", "But the next post such stories I will tell", "As, joined with these, shall to a volumn swell,", "As true as heaven, more infamous than hell.", "But you are tired, and so am I.", "Farewell." ], "linecount": "266" }, { "title": "A Woman's Honour", "author": "John Wilmot", "lines": [ "Love bade me hope, and I obeyed;", "Phyllis continued still unkind:", "Then you may e'en despair, he said,", "In vain I strive to change her mind.", "", "Honour's got in, and keeps her heart,", "Durst he but venture once abroad,", "In my own right I'd take your part,", "And show myself the mightier God.", "", "This huffing Honour domineers", "In breasts alone where he has place:", "But if true generous Love appears,", "The hector dares not show his face.", "", "Let me still languish and complain,", "Be most unhumanly denied:", "I have some pleasure in my pain,", "She can have none with all her pride.", "", "I fall a sacrifice to Love,", "She lives a wretch for Honour's sake;", "Whose tyrant does most cruel prove,", "The difference is not hard to make.", "", "Consider real Honour then,", "You'll find hers cannot be the same;", "'Tis noble confidence in men,", "In women, mean, mistrustful shame." ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "All My Past Life...", "author": "John Wilmot", "lines": [ "All my past life is mine no more,", "The flying hours are gone,", "Like transitory dreams given o'er,", "Whose images are kept in store", "By memory alone.", "", "What ever is to come is not,", "How can it then be mine?", "The present moment's all my lot,", "And that as fast as it is got,", "Phyllis, is wholly thine.", "", "Then talk not of inconstancy,", "False hearts, and broken vows,", "Ii, by miracle, can be,", "This live-long minute true to thee,", "'Tis all that heaven allows." ], "linecount": "15" } ]