T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
From The Mad-dog
By John Gay (16851732)(A Tale, 1720) A PRUDE, at morn and ev’ning prayer, | |
Had worn her velvet cushion bare; | |
Upward she taught her eyes to roll, | |
As if she watched her soaring soul; | |
And when devotion warmed the crowd, | 5 |
None sung, or smote their breast so loud: | |
Pale Penitence had mark’d her face | |
With all the meagre signs of grace. | |
Her mass-book was completely lined | |
With painted saints of various kind: | 10 |
But when in ev’ry page she viewed | |
Fine ladies who the flesh subdued; | |
As quick her beads she counted o’er, | |
She cried—such wonders are no more! | |
She chose not to delay confession, | 15 |
To bear at once a year’s transgression, | |
But ev’ry week set all things even, | |
And balanced her accounts with heaven. | |
Behold her now in humble guise, | |
Upon her knees with downcast eyes | 20 |
Before the Priest: she thus begins, | |
And, sobbing, blubbers forth her sins; | |
Who could that tempting man resist? | |
My virtue languished, as he kissed; | |
I strove,—till I could strive no longer, | 25 |
How can the weak subdue the stronger? | |
The father asked her where and when? | |
How many? and what sort of men? | |
By what degrees her blood was heated? | |
How oft the frailty was repeated? | 30 |
Thus have I seen a pregnant wench | |
All flushed with guilt before the bench, | |
The judges (waked by wanton thought) | |
Dive to the bottom of her fault, | |
They leer, they simper at her shame, | 35 |
And make her call all things by name. | |
And now to sentence he proceeds, | |
Prescribes how oft to tell her beads; | |
Shows her what saints could do her good, | |
Doubles her fasts to cool her blood. | 40 |
Eased of her sins, and light as air, | |
Away she trips, perhaps to prayer. | |
’Twas no such thing. Why then this haste? | |
The clock has struck, the hour is past, | |
And on the spur of inclination, | 45 |
She scorn’d to bilk her assignation. | |
Whate’er she did, next week she came, | |
And piously contest the same; | |
The Priest, who female frailties pitied, | |
First chid her, then her sins remitted. * * * * * | 50 |
Madam, I grant there’s something in it, | |
That virtue has th’ unguarded minute; | |
But pray now tell me what are whores, | |
But women of unguarded hours? | |
Then you must sure have lost all shame. | 55 |
What, ev’ry day, and still the same, | |
And no fault else! ’tis strange to find | |
A woman to one sin confined! | |
Pride is this day her darling passion, | |
The next day slander is in fashion; | 60 |
Gaming succeeds; if fortune crosses, | |
Then virtue’s mortgaged for her losses; | |
By use her fav’rite vice she loathes, | |
And loves new follies like new clothes: | |
But you, beyond all thought unchaste, | 65 |
Have all sin center’d near your waist! | |
Whence is this appetite so strong? | |
Say, Madam, did your mother long? | |
Or is it luxury and high diet | |
That won’t let virtue sleep in quiet? | 70 |
She tells him now with meekest voice, | |
That she had never erred by choice, | |
Nor was their known a virgin chaster, | |
Till ruin’d by a sad disaster. | |
That she a fav’rite lap-dog had, | 75 |
Which, (as she stroked and kiss’d) grew mad; | |
And on her lip a wound indenting, | |
First set her youthful blood fermenting. * * * * * | |