Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

The End

Anonymous

(From Songs, Comic, and Satyrical, by George Alexander Stevens, 1782)

PAPILIO the rich, in the hurry of love,
Resolving to wed, to fair Arabell drove;
He made his proposals, he begg’d she would fix,
What maid could say no to a new Coach-and-six?
We’ll suppose they were wed, the guests bid, supper done,	5
The fond pair in bed, and the stocking was thrown:
The Bride lay expecting to what this wou’d tend,
Since created a wife, wish’d to know for what end.
On the velvet peach oft, as the gaudy fly rests,
The Bridegroom’s lips stopp’d, on Love’s pillows, her breasts:	10
All amazement, impassive, the heart-heaving fair,
With a sigh seem’d to prompt him, don’t stay too long there.
Round her waist, and round such a waist circling his arms,
He raptures rehears’d on her unpossess’d charms.
Says the fair one, and gap’d, I hear all you pretend,	15
But now for I’m sleepy, pray come to an end.
My love ne’er shall end, ’Squire Shadow reply’d,
But still unattempting, lay stretch’d at her side:
She made feints, as if something she meant to defend,
But found out, at last, it was all to no end.	20
In disdain starting up from the impotent boy,
She, sighing, pronounc’d, there’s an end of my joy;
They resolv’d this advice to her sex she wou’d send,
Ne’er to wed till they’re sure they can wed to some end.
And which end is that? why the end which prevails,	25
Ploughs, ships, birds, and fishes are steered by their tails:
And tho’ man and wife for the head may contend,
I’m sure they’re best pleas’d when they gain t’other end.
The end of our wishes, the end of our wives,
The end of our loves, and the end of our lives,	30
The end of conjunction, ’twixt mistress and male,
Tho’ the head may design, has its end in the tail.
’Tis time tho’ to finish, if ought I intend,
Lest, like a bad husband, I come to no end;
The ending I mean is what none will think wrong,	35
And that is, to make now an end of my song.