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The Poems of John Byrom

Edited by Adolphus William Ward

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FROM A GENTLEMAN TO HIS BARBER.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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FROM A GENTLEMAN TO HIS BARBER.

THREE FRAGMENTS.


227

Fragment I.

O thomas, did you see my Beard,
So long, so white, and eke so hard,
Which thus afflicts a suffering Sinner,
You would ere now have sent a Trimmer.

Fragment II.

Thomas,
I hope this short Epistle,
Will serve the purpose of a Whistle,

228

And bring you hither in a Minute,
When you shall see what's written in it.

Fragment III.

From under my Lime-Tree, May 23rd, 1736.
Thomas,
Methinks, 'tis wondrous strange
How some Folks' constitutions change!
When I was young, and went to School,
I thought a poet a stark fool.
As I grew up a taller Lad,
I bolder grew, and thought him mad,
And ne'er vouchsaf'd to read one once;—
So, left the School, and turn'd out Dunce;
And, thus equipp'd, from them was hurl'd
Into a noisy, bustling World,
Where in no time, nor in no Season,
I e'er could meet with Rime or reason.