T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
A Present to a Lady
Anonymous(From Merry Drollery, 1691) LADIES, I do here present you | |
| With a token Love hath sent you; | |
| ’Tis a thing to sport and play with, | |
| Such another pretty thing | |
| For to pass the time away with; | 5 |
| Prettier sport was never seen; | |
| Name I will not, nor define it, | |
| Sure I am you may divine it: | |
| By those modest looks I guess it, | |
| And those eyes so full of fire, | 10 |
| That I need no more express it, | |
| But leave your fancies to admire. | |
| Yet as much of it be spoken | |
| In the praise of this love-token: | |
| ’Tis a wash that far surpasseth | 15 |
| For the cleansing of your blood, | |
| All the Saints may bless your faces, | |
| Yet not do you so much good. | |
| Were you ne’er so melancholy, | |
| It will make you blithe and jolly; | 20 |
| Go no more, no more admiring, | |
| When you feel your spleen’s amiss, | |
| For all the drinks of Steel and Iron | |
| Never did such cures as this. | |
| It was born in th’ Isle of Man | 25 |
| Venus nurs’d it with her hand, | |
| She puffed it up with milk and pap, | |
| And lull’d it in her wanton lap, | |
| So ever since this Monster can | |
| In no place else with pleasure stand. | 30 |
| Colossus like, between two Rocks, | |
| I have seen him stand and shake his locks, | |
| And when I have heard the names | |
| Of the sweet Saterian Dames, | |
| O he’s a Champion for a Queen, | 35 |
| ’Tis pity but he should be seen. | |
| Nature, that made him, was so wise | |
| As to give him neither tongue nor eyes, | |
| Supposing he was born to be | |
| The instrument of Jealousie, | 40 |
| Yet here he can, as Poets feign, | |
| Cure a Ladies love-sick brain. | |
| He was the first that did betray | |
| To mortal eyes the milky way; | |
| He is the Proteus cunning Ape | 45 |
| That will beget you any shape; | |
| Give him but leave to act his part, | |
| And he’ll revive your saddest heart. | |
| Though he want legs, yet he can stand, | |
| With the least touch of your soft hand; | 50 |
| And though, like Cupid, he be blind, | |
| There’s never a hole but he can find; | |
| If by all this you do not know it, | |
| Pray, Ladies, give me leave to show it. | |