Original poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

123

A DELICATE DITTY.

MY muse so sweet,
A song complete,
Bid echo sound symphonious;
And trill away
A melting lay
Which rival may
The kissing Bonefonius;

124

My passions' hot
As pepper-pot

125

Or brandy mix'd with ginger!
The ardent fire
Of my desire,
Should I come nigh her
I really think would singe her!

My little love!
My duck! my dove!
Yield! yield to my caresses!
O let me giue
My lips to you
Till black and blue,
With rapture's sweet excesses!

126

While gods look down,
With envy frown,
At such uncommon blisses;
Dame Juno leers,
Jove tells his peers
He'd give his ears
For such an hour as this is!

Sweet nymph forbear,
To rave and tear,
Cease, cease your prude-like flirting.
To love begin,
Nor care a pin;
A little sin
There is but little hurt in!

127

If you assail,
With tooth and nail,
I'll kiss so much the longer!
And should you fight
And scratch and bite,
Like fury quite,
I'll kiss so much the stronger!

128

While gods look down,
With envy frown
On such uncommon blisses;
Dame Juno leers,
Jove tells his peers
He'd give his ears
For such an hour as this is!

Now tug and squeeze!
Now whine and wheeze!
Now let me smack you fairly!
O squeeze! O tug!
O smack! O hug!
(Hambúg! humbúg!)
O rarely!—Oh! how rarely!!!

129

While gods look down,
With envy frown,
On such uncommon blisses;
Dame Juno leers,
Jove tells his peers
He'd give his ears
For such an hour as this is!

Good reader, since
You stare and wince
At this our dainty ditty,
With aspect bluff,
Exclaim enough
Of this sad stuff!
Which moves my spleen and pity;

I'll even stop,
And shut up shop,
For female ware is brittle;
But would you wish
To taste a dish
Of tainted fish,
Go, read the songs of Little!

The object of this little poem is, by an ironical imitation of certain popular writers of meretricious love songs, and “Roguish Sonnets,” to stigmatize them with that opprobrium which they so justly merit.

Johannes Bonefonius, a Cyprian devotee, a Frenchman of the fifteenth century, and author of certain amatory poems, which have been rendered into English, with happy improvements, by some well-wisher to community, and are, no doubt, very popular, as well as highly meritorious.

This gentleman (like many other delicious poets, and poetesses, from the days of Sappho down to Mrs. Robinson) seems to have supposed, that young people, of different sexes, in the hey-day of youth and beauty, when the pulse

—“gine wallop,
“And ragings wild the veins convulse
“With still eternal gallop!”

are in want of fuel to be added to the blaze of passion. He, therefore, set himself to work to teach young ladies and gentlemen,

“The prettiest tricks in the world!”

and wrote his “Basis,” a very entertaining work, which contains much important information relative to some astonishing improvements, which the gentleman, in conjunction with one Miss Pancharis (who, I dare say, was no better than she should have been) had made in the ancient and honourable art of—kissing. But, to be serious.— If the poor publisher of an obscene print is justly sentenced to the pillory for poisoning the minds of the younger classes of community, what ought to be the punishment of the gentleman who diffuses poison a thousand times more deleterious, because a thousand times more palatable?

Burns.

This line from “Little's Poems,” which cannot be too severely anathematized for their pernicious tendency in society.

Hauriens animam meam caducam
Flagrantem nimio vapore coctam,
Coctam pectoris impotentis æstu.
JOHANNES SECUNDUS NICOLAUS.

Sweet hour, all hail!
With envy pale,
Which Jove himself might see.

O night of bliss
To equal this
Olympus strives in vain, &c.
Translation of the Epithalamium of Johannes Secundus.

“Pretty moralist! why thus beginning,
“My innocent warmth to reprove;
“Heav'n knows that I never lov'd sinning,
“Except little sinnings in love!”
LITTLE'S POEMS.

How much more noble is the sentiment of Burns on this subject:—

“The sacred lowe of weell plac'd love
“Luxuriantly indulge it,
“But never 'tempt the illicit rove,
“Though nothing should divulge it;
“I wave the quantum of the sin,
“The hazard of concealing,
“But och! it hardens a'within,
“And petrifice the feeling!”

Tum me plursibus hinc et inde figas
Et os unguibus hinc et inde vellas,
Nec morsus metuam unguium sulcos;
Quin quanto altius unguibus notaris,
Quanto fixierir acriore morsu
Tanto basia pressiora figam
Tanto et ipse primam arctione nexu!
Now thy teeth shall vengeful bite, &c.

Hambug! humbug!

This beautiful and delicious line is intended merely for the use of certain reviewers, in England, who mistook the object of a certain publication. It is as much as to say—gentlemen, this is indeed irety!!