The Humorous Poetry of the English Language; from Chaucer to Saxe Part 112

My blood this day is very sweet, To-morrow of a bitter juice; Like milk, 'tis cried about the street, And so applied to different use.

Most wondrous is my magic power: For with one color I can paint; I'll make the devil a saint this hour, Next make a devil of a saint.

Through distant regions I can fly, Provide me but with paper wings; And fairly show a reason why There should be quarrels among kings;

And, after all, you'll think it odd, When learned doctors will dispute, That I should point the word of G.o.d, And show where they can best confute.

Let lawyers bawl and strain their throats 'Tis I that must the lands convey, And strip their clients to their coats; Nay, give their very souls away.

ON A CIRCLE.

I'm up and down, and round about, Yet all the world can't find me out; Though hundreds have employ'd their leisure, They never yet could find my measure.

I'm found almost in every garden, Nay, in the compa.s.s of a farthing.

There's neither chariot, coach, nor mill, Can move an inch except I will.

ON A PEN.

In youth exalted high in air, Or bathing in the waters fair, Nature to form me took delight, And clad my body all in white.

My person tall, and slender waist, On either side with fringes graced; Tell me that tyrant man espied, And dragg'd me from my mother's side, No wonder now I look so thin; The tyrant stript me to the skin: My skin he flay'd, my hair he cropt: At head and foot my body lopt: And then, with heart more hard than s one, He pick'd my marrow from the bone.

To vex me more, he took a freak To slit my tongue and make me speak But, that which wonderful appears, I speak to eyes, and not to ears.

He oft employs me in disguise, And makes me tell a thousand lies: To me he chiefly gives in trust To please his malice or his l.u.s.t, From me no secret he can hide: I see his vanity and pride: And my delight is to expose His follies to his greatest foes.

All languages I can command, Yet not a word I understand.

Without my aid, the best divine In learning would not know a line: The lawyer must forget his pleading; The scholar could not show his reading Nay; man my master is my slave; I give command to kill or save.

Can grant ten thousand pounds a-year, And make a beggar's brat a peer.

But, while I thus my life relate, I only hasten on my fate.

My tongue is black, my mouth is furr'd, I hardly now can force a word.

I die unpitied and forgot, And on some dunghill left to rot.

A FAN.

From India's burning clime I'm brought, With cooling gales like zephyrs fraught.

Not Iris, when she paints the sky, Can show more different hues than I: Nor can she change her form so fast, I'm now a sail, and now a mast.

I here am red, and there am green, A beggar there, and here a queen.

I sometimes live in a house of hair, And oft in hand of lady fair.

I please the young, I grace the old, And am at once both hot and cold Say what I am then, if you can, And find the rhyme, and you're the man.

ON A CANNON.

Begotten, and born, and dying with noise, The terror of women, and pleasure of boys, Like the fiction of poets concerning the wind, I'm chiefly unruly when strongest confined.

For silver and gold I don't trouble my head, But all I delight in is pieces of lead; Except when I trade with a s.h.i.+p or a town, Why then I make pieces of iron go down.

One property more I would have you remark, No lady was ever more fond of a spark; The moment I get one my soul's all a-fire, And I roar out my joy, and in transport expire.

ON THE FIVE SENSES.

All of us in one you'll find, Brethren of a wondrous kind; Yet among us all no brother Knows one t.i.tle of the other; We in frequent counsels are, And our marks of things declare, Where, to us unknown, a clerk Sits, and takes them in the dark.

He's the register of all In our ken, both great and small; By us forms his laws and rules, He's our master, we his tools; Yet we can with greatest ease Turn and wind him where you please.

One of us alone can sleep, Yet no watch the rest will keep, But the moment that he closes, Every brother else reposes.

If wine's bought or victuals drest, One enjoys them for the rest.

Pierce us all with wounding steel, One for all of us will feel.

Though ten thousand cannons roar, Add to them ten thousand more, Yet but one of us is found Who regards the dreadful sound.

ON SNOW.

From Heaven I fall, though from earth I begin.

No lady alive can show such a skin.

I'm bright as an angel, and light as a feather, But heavy and dark, when you squeeze me together.

Though candor and truth in my aspect I bear, Yet many poor creatures I help to insnare.

Though so much of Heaven appears in my make, The foulest impressions I easily take.

My parent and I produce one another, The mother the daughter, the daughter the mother.

ON A CANDLE.

Of all inhabitants on earth, To man alone I owe my birth, And yet the cow, the sheep, the bee, Are all my parents more than he: I, a virtue, strange and rare, Make the fairest look more fair; And myself, which yet is rarer, Growing old, grow still the fairer.

Like sots, alone I'm dull enough, When dosed with smoke, and smear'd with snuff; But, in the midst of mirth and wine, I with double l.u.s.ter s.h.i.+ne.

Emblem of the Fair am I, Polish'd neck, and radiant eye; In my eye my greatest grace, Emblem of the Cyclops' race; Metals I like them subdue, Slave like them to Vulcan too; Emblem of a monarch old, Wise, and glorious to behold; Wasted he appears, and pale, Watching for the public weal: Emblem of the bashful dame, That in secret feeds her flame, Often aiding to impart All the secrets of her heart; Various is my bulk and hue, Big like Bess, and small like Sue: Now brown and burnish'd like a nut, At other times a very s.l.u.t; Often fair, and soft and tender, Taper, tall, and smooth, and slender: Like Flora, deck'd with various flowers Like Phoebus, guardian of the hours: But whatever be my dress, Greater be my size or less, Swelling be my shape or small Like thyself I s.h.i.+ne in all.

Clouded if my face is seen, My complexion wan and green, Languid like a love-sick maid, Steel affords me present aid.

Soon or late, my date is done, As my thread of life is spun; Yet to cut the fatal thread Oft revives my drooping head; Yet I perish in my prime, Seldom by the death of time; Die like lovers as they gaze, Die for those I live to please; Pine unpitied to my urn, Nor warm the fair for whom I burn; Unpitied, unlamented too, Die like all that look on you.

ON A CORKSCREW.

Though I, alas! a prisoner be, My trade is prisoners to set free.

No slave his lord's commands obeys With such insinuating ways.

My genius piercing, sharp, and bright, Wherein the men of wit delight.

The clergy keep me for their ease, And turn and wind me as they please.

A new and wondrous art I show Of raising spirits from below; In scarlet some, and some in white; They rise, walk round, yet never fright In at each mouth the spirits pa.s.s, Distinctly seen as through a gla.s.s.

O'er head and body make a rout, And drive at last all secrets out; And still, the more I show my art, The more they open every heart.

A greater chemist none than I Who, from materials hard and dry, Have taught men to extract with skill More precious juice than from a still.

Although I'm often out of case, I'm not ashamed to show my face.

Though at the tables of the great I near the sideboard take my seat; Yet the plain 'squire, when dinner's done, Is never pleased till I make one; He kindly bids me near him stand, And often takes me by the hand.

I twice a-day a-hunting go, And never fail to seize my foe; And when I have him by the poll, I drag him upward from his hole; Though some are of so stubborn kind, I'm forced to leave a limb behind.

I hourly wait some fatal end; For I can break, but scorn to bend.

AN ECHO.

Never sleeping, still awake, Pleasing most when most I speak; The delight of old and young, Though I speak without a tongue.

Nought but one thing can confound me, Many voices joining round me; Then I fret, and rave, and gabble, Like the laborers of Babel.

Now I am a dog, or cow, I can bark, or I can low; I can bleat, or I can sing, Like the warblers of the spring.

Let the love-sick bard complain, And I mourn the cruel pain; Let the happy swain rejoice, And I join my helping voice: Both are welcome, grief or joy, I with either sport and toy.

Though a lady, I am stout, Drums and trumpets bring me out: Then I clash, and roar, and rattle, Join in all the din of battle.