Written by
Jonathan Swift |
Corinna, Pride of Drury-Lane,
For whom no Shepherd sighs in vain;
Never did Covent Garden boast
So bright a batter'd, strolling Toast;
No drunken Rake to pick her up,
No Cellar where on Tick to sup;
Returning at the Midnight Hour;
Four Stories climbing to her Bow'r;
Then, seated on a three-legg'd Chair,
Takes off her artificial Hair:
Now, picking out a Crystal Eye,
She wipes it clean, and lays it by.
Her Eye-Brows from a Mouse's Hide,
Stuck on with Art on either Side,
Pulls off with Care, and first displays 'em,
Then in a Play-Book smoothly lays 'em.
Now dextrously her Plumpers draws,
That serve to fill her hollow Jaws.
Untwists a Wire; and from her Gums
A Set of Teeth completely comes.
Pulls out the Rags contriv'd to prop
Her flabby Dugs and down they drop.
Proceeding on, the lovely Goddess
Unlaces next her Steel-Rib'd Bodice;
Which by the Operator's Skill,
Press down the Lumps, the Hollows fill,
Up hoes her Hand, and off she slips
The Bolsters that supply her Hips.
With gentlest Touch, she next explores
Her Shankers, Issues, running Sores,
Effects of many a sad Disaster;
And then to each applies a Plaster.
But must, before she goes to Bed,
Rub off the Daubs of White and Red;
And smooth the Furrows in her Front,
With greasy Paper stuck upon't.
She takes a Bolus e'er she sleeps;
And then between two Blankets creeps.
With pains of love tormented lies;
Or if she chance to close her Eyes,
Of Bridewell and the Compter dreams,
And feels the Lash, and faintly screams;
Or, by a faithless Bully drawn,
At some Hedge-Tavern lies in Pawn;
Or to Jamaica seems transported,
Alone, and by no Planter courted;
Or, near Fleet-Ditch's oozy Brinks,
Surrounded with a Hundred Stinks,
Belated, seems on watch to lie,
And snap some Cull passing by;
Or, struck with Fear, her Fancy runs
On Watchmen, Constables and Duns,
From whom she meets with frequent Rubs;
But, never from Religious Clubs;
Whose Favour she is sure to find,
Because she pays them all in Kind.
CORINNA wakes. A dreadful Sight!
Behold the Ruins of the Night!
A wicked Rat her Plaster stole,
Half eat, and dragged it to his Hole.
The Crystal Eye, alas, was miss'd;
And Puss had on her Plumpers piss'd.
A Pigeon pick'd her Issue-Peas;
And Shock her Tresses fill'd with Fleas.
The Nymph, tho' in this mangled Plight,
Must ev'ry Morn her Limbs unite.
But how shall I describe her Arts
To recollect the scatter'd Parts?
Or show the Anguish, Toil, and Pain,
Of gath'ring up herself again?
The bashful Muse will never bear
In such a Scene to interfere.
Corinna in the Morning dizen'd,
Who sees, will spew; who smells, be poison'd.
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Written by
John Wilmot |
Naked she lay, clasped in my longing arms,
I filled with love, and she all over charms;
Both equally inspired with eager fire,
Melting through kindness, flaming in desire.
With arms,legs,lips close clinging to embrace,
She clips me to her breast, and sucks me to her face.
Her nimble tongue, Love's lesser lightening, played
Within my mouth, and to my thoughts conveyed
Swift orders that I should prepare to throw
The all-dissolving thunderbolt below.
My fluttering soul, sprung with the painted kiss,
Hangs hovering o'er her balmy brinks of bliss.
But whilst her busy hand would guide that part
Which should convey my soul up to her heart,
In liquid raptures I dissolve all o'er,
Melt into sperm and, and spend at every pore.
A touch from any part of her had done't:
Her hand, her foot, her very look's a ****.
Smiling, she chides in a kind murmuring noise,
And from her body wipes the clammy joys,
When, with a thousand kisses wandering o'er
My panting bosom, "Is there then no more?"
She cries. "All this to love and rapture's due;
Must we not pay a debt to pleasure too?"
But I, the most forlorn, lost man alive,
To show my wished obedience vainly strive:
I sigh, alas! and kiss, but cannot swive.
Eager desires confound my first intent,
Succeeding shame does more success prevent,
And rage at last confirms me impotent.
Ev'n her fair hand, which might bid heat return
To frozen age, and make cold hermits burn,
Applied to my dead cinder, warms no more
Than fire to ashes could past flames restore.
Trembling, confused, despairing, limber, dry,
A wishing, weak, unmoving lump I lie.
This dart of love, whose piercing point, oft tried,
With virgin blood ten thousand maids have dyed;
Which nature still directed with such art
That it through every **** reached every heart -
Stiffly resolved, 'twould carelessly invade
Woman or man, nor aught its fury stayed:
Where'er it pierced, a **** it found or made -
Now languid lies in this unhappy hour,
Shrunk up and sapless like a withered flower.
Thou treacherous, base deserter of my flame,
False to my passion, fatal to my fame,
Through what mistaken magic dost thou prove
So true to lewdness, so untrue to love?
What oyster-cinder-beggar-common whore
Didst thou e'er fail in all thy life before?
When vice, disease, and scandal lead the way,
With what officious haste dost thou obey!
Like a rude, roaring hector in the streets
Who scuffles, cuffs, and justles all he meets,
But if his king or country claim his aid,
The rakehell villain shrinks and hides his head;
Ev'n so thy brutal valour is displayed,
Breaks every stew, does each small whore invade,
But when great Love the onset does command,
Base recreant to thy prince, thou dar'st not stand.
Worst part of me, and henceforth hated most,
Through all the town a common fucking-post,
On whom each whore relieves her tingling ****
As hogs do rub themselves on gates and grunt,
May'st thou to ravenous chancres be a prey,
Or in consuming weepings waste away;
May strangury and stone thy days attend;
May'st thou ne'er piss, who did refuse to spend
When all my joys did on false thee depend.
And may ten thousand abler pricks agree
To do the wronged Corinna right for thee.
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Written by
Francesco Petrarch |
CANZONE XVIII. Qual più diversa e nova. HE COMPARES HIMSELF TO ALL THAT IS MOST STRANGE IN CREATION. Whate'er most wild and newWas ever found in any foreign land,If viewed and valued true,Most likens me 'neath Love's transforming hand.Whence the bright day breaks through,Alone and consortless, a bird there flies,Who voluntary dies,To live again regenerate and entire:So ever my desire,Alone, itself repairs, and on the crestOf its own lofty thoughts turns to our sun,There melts and is undone,And sinking to its first state of unrest,So burns and dies, yet still its strength resumes,And, Phœnix-like, afresh in force and beauty blooms. Where Indian billows sweep,A wondrous stone there is, before whose strengthStout navies, weak to keepTheir binding iron, sink engulf'd at length:So prove I, in this deepOf bitter grief, whom, with her own hard pride,That fair rock knew to guideWhere now my life in wreck and ruin drives:Thus too the soul deprives,By theft, my heart, which once so stonelike was,It kept my senses whole, now far dispersed:For mine, O fate accurst!A rock that lifeblood and not iron draws,Whom still i' the flesh a magnet living, sweet,Drags to the fatal shore a certain doom to meet. Neath the far Ethiop skiesA beast is found, most mild and meek of air,Which seems, yet in her eyesDanger and dool and death she still does bear:[Pg 134]Much needs he to be wiseTo look on hers whoever turns his mien:Although her eyes unseen,All else securely may be viewed at willBut I to mine own illRun ever in rash grief, though well I knowMy sufferings past and future, still my mindIts eager, deaf and blindDesire o'ermasters and unhinges so,That in her fine eyes and sweet sainted face,Fatal, angelic, pure, my cause of death I trace. In the rich South there flowsA fountain from the sun its name that wins,This marvel still that shows,Boiling at night, but chill when day begins;Cold, yet more cold it growsAs the sun's mounting car we nearer see:So happens it with me(Who am, alas! of tears the source and seat),When the bright light and sweet,My only sun retires, and lone and drearMy eyes are left, in night's obscurest reign,I burn, but if againThe gold rays of the living sun appear,My slow blood stiffens, instantaneous, strange;Within me and without I feel the frozen change! Another fount of fameSprings in Epirus, which, as bards have told,Kindles the lurking flame,And the live quenches, while itself is cold.My soul, that, uncontroll'd,And scathless from love's fire till now had pass'd,Carelessly left at lastNear the cold fair for whom I ceaseless sigh,Was kindled instantly:Like martyrdom, ne'er known by day or night,A heart of marble had to mercy shamed.Which first her charms inflamedHer fair and frozen virtue quenched the light;That thus she crushed and kindled my heart's fire,Well know I who have felt in long and useless ire. [Pg 135]Beyond our earth's known brinks,In the famed Islands of the Blest, there beTwo founts: of this who drinksDies smiling: who of that to live is free.A kindred fate Heaven linksTo my sad life, who, smilingly, could dieFor like o'erflowing joy,But soon such bliss new cries of anguish stay.Love! still who guidest my way,Where, dim and dark, the shade of fame invites,Not of that fount we speak, which, full each hour,Ever with larger powerO'erflows, when Taurus with the Sun unites;So are my eyes with constant sorrow wet,But in that season most when I my Lady met. Should any ask, my Song!Or how or where I am, to such reply:Where the tall mountain throwsIts shade, in the lone vale, whence Sorga flows,He roams, where never eyeSave Love's, who leaves him not a step, is by,And one dear image who his peace destroys,Alone with whom to muse all else in life he flies. Macgregor.
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