Short Poems

Of a railing humour.

(Good Lord) that men should haue such kennel wits
To thinke so well of a scald railing vaine,
Which soone is vented in beslauered writs,
As when the cholicke in the gutts doth straine,
With ciuill conflicts in the same embrac't.
But let a fart, and then the worst is past.

Of Fabler.

Since marriage, Faber's prouder then before,
Yfayth his wife must take him a hole lower.

Of Matho.

Matho in credite bound to pay a debt,
His word engagde him for, doth still replie,
That he will aunswere it with sophistrie,
And so deferres daily to aunswere it:
Experience now hath taught me sophistrie,
He gaue me his word; that is, he coussend me.

To Liuia.

Liuia , I kon thee thanke, when thou doost kisse
Thou turn'st thy cheeke: see what good nature is!
For well thou knowst thy breaths infection,
Able to turne my stomack vpside downe.
Which when I thinke on, but for manners sake,
I'ld pray thee thy cheeke too away to take.

Of Titus.

Titus oft vaunts his gentry euery where,
Blazoning his coate, deruiing's pedegree;
What needest thou daily Titus iade mine eare?
I will beleeue thy houses auncestry;
If that be auncient which we doe forget,
Thy gentry is so; none can remember it.

To the Reader.

Whose hap shall be to reade these pedler rimes,
Let them expect no elaborat foolery,
Such as Hermaphroditize these poore times,
With wicked scald iests, extreame gullerie:
Bunglers stande long in tinck'ring their trim Say,
Ile onely spit my venome, and away.

Insteede of Ingling termes for thy good will ,
Reader fall to, reade, iest and carpe thy fill.

That night,
In league with Hell, ere morning streak'd the skies,
Left all its darkness in the misused eyes
Of Constantine the Porphyrogenete:
— The shadow of a shadow, forced to fleet
Out of the glare that gave him in men's sight
The semblance of a substance once.

I PSARUM tribadum tribas, Philaeni,
Recte, quam futuis, uocas amicam.

AS HEPHEARDS youth dwelt on the plaines,
That passt the common sort of Swaines,
By how much had himselfe before
Beene nursed up in Colins lore;
Who, while his flocke, ybent to stray,
Glad of the Sunne-shine of the day,
Wandered the field, and were abroade dispers'd,
He tooke his Pipe and sate him downe and vers'd.