Classic Poem

" Poets are born" — & so are whores — the trade is
Grown universal — in these canting days
Women of fashion must of course be ladies
& whoreing is the business — that still pays
Playhouses Ball rooms — there the masquerade is
— To do what was of old — & now adays
Their maids — nay wives so innoscent & blooming
Cuckold their spouses to seem honest women.
Milton sung Eden & the fall of man
Not woman for the name implies a wh — e
& they would make a ruin of his plan
Falling so often they can fall no lower
Tell me a worse delusion if you can
For innoscence — & I will sing no more
Wherever mischief is tis womans brewing
Created from manself — to be mans ruin.
The flower in bud hides from the fading sun
& keeps the hue of beauty on its cheek
But when full blown they into riot run
The hue turns pale & lost each ruddy streak
So 't'is with woman who pretends to shun
Immodest actions which they inly seek
Night hides the wh — e — cupboards tart & pasty
Flora was p-x-d — & womans quite as nasty.
Marriage is nothing but a driveling hoax
To please old codgers when they're turned of forty
I wed & left my wife like other folks
But not untill I found her false & faulty
O woman fair — the man must pay thy jokes
Such makes a husband very often naughty
Who falls in love will seek his own undoing
The road to marriage is — " the road to ruin"
Love worse then debt or drink or any fate
It is the damnest smart of matrimony
A hell incarnate is a woman-mate
The knot is tied — & then we loose the honey
A wife is just the protetype to hate
Commons for stock & warrens for the coney
Are not more tresspassed over in rights plan
Then this incumberance on the rights of man.
There's much said about love & more of women
I wish they were as modest as they seem
Some borrow husbands till their cheeks are blooming
Not like the red rose blush — but yellow cream
Lord what a while those good days are in coming —
Routs Masques & Balls — I wish they were a dream
— I wish for poor men luck — an honest praxis
Cheap food & cloathing — no corn laws or taxes.
I wish — but there is little got bye wishing
I wish that bread & great coats ne'er had risen
I wish that there was some such word as " pishun
For ryhme sake for my verses must be dizen
With dresses fine — as hooks with baits for fishing
I wish all honest men were out of prison
I wish M.P's. would spin less yarn — nor doubt
But burn false bills & cross bad taxes out.
I wish young married dames were not so frisky
Nor hide the ring to make believe they're single
I wish small beer was half as good as whiskey
& married dames with buggers would not mingle
There's some too cunning far & some too frisky
& here I want a ryhme — so write down " jingle"
& there's such putting in — in whores crim con
Some mouths would eat forever & eat on.
Children are fond of sucking sugar candy
& maids of sausages — larger the better
Shopmen are fond of good sigars & brandy
& I of blunt — & if you change the letter
To C or K it would be quite as handy
& throw the next away — but I'm your debtor
For modesty — yet wishing nought between us
I'd hawl close to a she as vulcan did to venus.
I really cant tell what this poem will be
About — nor yet what trade I am to follow
I thought to buy old wigs — but that will kill me
With cold starvation — as they're beaten hollow
Long speeches in a famine will not fill me
& madhouse traps still take me by the collar
So old wig bargains now must be forgotten
The oil that dressed them fine has made them rotten.
I wish old wigs were done with ere they're mouldy
I wish — but heres the papers large & lusty
With speeches that full fifty times they've told ye
— Noble Lord John to sweet Miss Fanny Fusty
Is wed — a lie good reader I ne'er sold ye
— Prince Albert goes to Germany & must he
Leave the queens snuff box where all fools are strumming
From addled eggs no chickens can be coming.
Whigs strum state fiddle strings until they snap
With cuckoo cuckold cuckoo year by year
The razor plays it on the barbers strap
— The sissars grinder thinks it rather quere
That labour wont afford him " one wee drap"
Of ale or gin or half & half or beer
— I wish prince Albert & the noble dastards
Who wed the wives — would get the noble bastards.
I wish prince Albert on his german journey
I wish the Whigs were out of office &
Pickled in law books of some good atorney
For ways & speeches few can understand
They'll bless ye when in power — in prison scorn ye
& make a man rent his own house & land —
I wish prince Alberts queen was undefiled
— & every man could get his wife with child.
I wish the devil luck with all my heart
As I would any other honest body
His bad name passes bye me like a f — t
Stinking of brimstone — then like whisky toddy
We swallow sin which seems to warm the heart
— There's no imputing any sin to God — he
Fills hell with work — & is'n't it a hard case
To leave old whigs & give to hell the carcass.
Me-b — ne may throw his wig to little Vicky
& so resign his humbug & his power
& she with the young princess mount the dickey
On ass milk diet for her german tour
Asses like ministers are rather tricky
I & the country proves it every hour
W-ll — gt-n & M-lb — — n in their station
Coblers to queens — are phisic to the nation.
These batch of toadstools on this rotten tree
Shall be the cabinet of any queen
Though not such coblers as her servants be
They're of Gods making — that is plainly seen
Nor red nor green nor orange — they are free
To thrive & flourish as the Whigs have been
But come tomorrow — like the Whigs forgotten
You'll find them withered stinking dead and rotten.
Death is an awfull thing it is by God
I've said so often & I think so now
Tis rather droll to see an old wig nod
Then doze & die the devil don't know how
Odd things are wearisome & this is odd —
Tis better work then kicking up a row
I'm weary of old Whigs & old whigs heirs
& long been sick of teazing God with prayers.
I've never seen the cow turn to a bull
I've never seen the horse become an ass
I've never seen an old brawn cloathed in whool —
But I have seen full many a bonny lass
& wish I had one now beneath the cool
Of these high elms — Muse tell me where I was
O — talk of turning I've seen Whig & Tory
Turn imps of hell — & all for Englands glory.
I love good fellowship & wit & punning
I love " true love" & God my taste defend
I hate most damnably all sorts of cunning —
I love the Moor & Marsh & Ponders end —
I do not like the song of " cease your funning"
I love a modest wife & trusty friend
— Bricklayers want lime as I want ryhme for fillups
— So here's a health to sweet Eliza Phillips.

Song

Eliza now the summer tells
Of spots where love & beauty dwells
Come & spend a day with me
Underneath the forest tree
Where the restless water flushes
Over mosses mounds & rushes
& where love & freedom dwells
With orchis flowers & fox glove bells
Come dear Eliza set me free
& oer the forest roam with me

Here I see the morning sun
Among the beachtree's shadows run
That into gold the short sward turns
Where each bright yellow blossom burns
With hues that would his beams out shine
Yet nought can match those smiles of thine
I try to find them all the day
But none are nigh when thou'rt away
Though flowers bloom now on every hill
Eliza is the fairest still

The sun wakes up the pleasant morn
& finds me lonely & forlorn
Then wears away to sunny noon
The flowers in bloom the birds in tune
While dull & dowie all the year
No smiles to see no voice to hear
I in this forest prison lie
With none to heed my silent sigh
& underneath this beachen tree
With none to sigh for Love but thee

Now this new poem is entirely new
As wedding gowns or money from the mint
For all I know it is entirely true
For I would scorn to put a lie in print
— I scorn to lie for princes — so would you
& ere I shoot I try my pistol flint
— The cattle salesman — knows the way in trying
& feels his bullocks ere he thinks of buying

Lord bless me now the day is in the gloaming
& every evil thought is out of sight
How I should like to purchase some sweet woman
Or else creep in with my two wives to night —
Surely that wedding day is on the comeing
Abscence like phisic poisons all delight —
Mary & Martha both an evil omen
Though both my own — they still belong to no man

But to our text again — & pray where is it
Begin as parsons do at the beginning
Take the first line friend & you cannot miss it
" Poets are born" & so are whores for sinning
— Here's the court circular — o Lord is this it
Court cards like lists of — not the naked meaning
Here's Albert going to germany they tell us
& the young queen down in the dumps & jealous

Now have you seen a tramper on race courses
Seeking an honest penny as his trade is
Crying a list of all the running horses
& showing handbills of the sporting ladies
— In bills of fare you'll find a many courses
Yet all are innoscent as any maid is
Put these two dishes into one & dress it
& if there is a meaning — you may guess it

Don Juan was Ambassador from russia
But had no hand in any sort of tax
His orders hung like blossoms of the fushia
& made the ladies hearts to melt like wax
He knew Napoleon & the king of prusia
& blowed a cloud oer spirits wine or max
But all his profits turned out losses rather
To save one orphan which he forced to father.

Theres Docter Bottle imp who deals in urine
A keeper of state prisons for the queen
As great a man as is the Doge of Turin
& save in London is but seldom seen
Yclep'd old A-ll-n — mad brained ladies curing
Some p-x-d like Flora & but seldom clean
The new road oer the forest is the right one
To see red hell & further on the white one.

Earth hells or b-gg-r sh-ps or what you please
Where men close prisoners are & women ravished
I've often seen such dirty sights as these
I've often seen good money spent & lavished
To keep bad houses up for docters fees
& I have known a b-gg-rs tally travers'd
Till all his good intents began to falter
— When death brought in his bill & left the halter

O glorious constitution what a picking
Ye've had from your tax harvest & your tythe
Old hens which cluck about that fair young chicken
— Cocks without spurs that yet can crow so blythe
Truth is shut up in prison while ye're licking
The gold from off the gingerbread — be lythe
In winding that patched broken old state clock up
Playhouses open — but mad houses lock up

Give toil more pay where rank starvation lurches
& pay your debts & put your books to rights
Leave whores & playhouses & fill your churches
Old clovenfoot your dirty victory fights
Like theft he still on natures manor poaches
& holds his feasting on anothers rights
To show plain truth you act in bawdy farces
Men show their tools — & maids expose their arses

Now this day is the eleventh of July
& being sunday I will seek no flaw
In man or woman — but prepare to die
In two days more I may that ticket draw
& so may thousands more as well as I
To day is here — the next who ever saw
& In a madhouse I can find no mirth pay
— Next tuesday used to be Lord Byrons birthday

Lord Byron poh — the man wot rites the werses
& is just what he is & nothing more
Who with his pen lies like the mist disperses
& makes all nothing as it was before
Who wed two wives & oft the truth rehearses
& might have had some twenty thousand more
Who has been dead so fools their lies are giving
& still in Allens madhouse caged & living

If I do wickedness to day being sunday
Can I by hearing prayers or singing psalms
Clear off all debts twixt god & man on monday
& lie like an old hull that dotage calms
& is there such a word as Abergundy
I've read that poem called the " Isle of Palms"
— But singing sense pray tell me if I can
Live an old rogue & die an honest man

I wish I had a quire of foolscap paper
Hot pressed — & crowpens — how I could endite
A silver candlestick & green wax taper
Lord bless me what fine poems I would write
The very tailors they would read & caper
& mantua makers would be all delight
Though laurel wreaths my brows did ne'er environ
I think myself as great a bard as Byron.

I have two wives & I should like to see them
Both by my side before another hour
If both are honest I should like to be them
For both are fair & bonny as a flower
& one o Lord — now do bring in the tea mem
Were bards pens steamers each of ten horse power
I could not bring her beautys fair to weather
So I've towed both in harbour blest together

Now i'n't this canto worth a single pound
From anybodys pocket who will buy
As thieves are worth a halter I'll be bound
Now honest reader take the book & try
& if as I have said it is not found
I'll write a better canto bye & bye
So reader now the money till unlock it
& buy the book & help to fill my pocket.