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. | |