T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Phyllis
By Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)(From Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, 1727–32) |
DESPONDING Phyllis was endued | |
| With ev’ry talent of a prude: | |
| She trembled when a man drew near; | |
| Salute her, and she turned her ear: | |
| If o’er against her you were placed, | 5 |
| She durst not look above your waist: | |
| She’d rather take you to her bed, | |
| Than let you see her dress her head; | |
| In church you hear her, thro’ the crowd, | |
| Repeat the absolution loud: | 10 |
| In church, secure behind her fan, | |
| She durst behold that monster man: | |
| There practised how to place her head, | |
| And bit her lips to make them red; | |
| Or, on the mat devoutly kneeling, | 15 |
| Would lift her eyes up to the ceiling, | |
| And heave her bosom unaware | |
| For neighbouring beaux to see it bare. | |
| At length a lucky lover came, | |
| And found admittance to the dame. | 20 |
| Suppose all parties now agreed, | |
| The writings drawn, the lawyer feed, | |
| The vicar and the ring bespoke: | |
| Guess, how could such a match be broke? | |
| See then what mortals place their bliss in! | 25 |
| Next morn betimes the bride was missing: | |
| The mother screamed, the father chid; | |
| Where can this idle wench be hid? | |
| No news of Phyl! the bridegroom came, | |
| And thought his bride had skulked for shame; | 30 |
| Because her father used to say, | |
| The girl had such a bashful way! | |
| Now John the butler must be sent | |
| To learn the road that Phyllis went: | |
| The groom was wished to saddle Crop; | 35 |
| For John must neither light nor stop, | |
| But find her, wheresoe’er she fled, | |
| And bring her back alive or dead. | |
| See here again the devil to do! | |
| For truly John was missing too: | 40 |
| The horse and pillion both were gone! | |
| Phyllis, it seems, was fled with John. | |
| Old Madam, who went up to find | |
| What papers Phyl had left behind, | |
| A letter on the toilet sees, | 45 |
| “To my much honoured father—these—” | |
| (’Tis always done, romances tell us, | |
| When daughters run away with fellows), | |
| Filled with the choicest common-places, | |
| By others used in the like cases,— | 50 |
| “That long ago a fortune-teller | |
| Exactly said what now befell her; | |
| And in a glass had made her see | |
| A serving-man of low degree. | |
| It was her fate, must be forgiven; | 55 |
| For marriages were made in Heaven: | |
| His pardon begged: but, to be plain, | |
| She’d do’t if ’twere to do again: | |
| Thank’d God, ’twas neither shame nor sin; | |
| For John was come of honest kin. | 60 |
| Love never thinks of rich and poor; | |
| She’d beg with John from door to door. | |
| Forgive her, if it be a crime; | |
| She’ll never do’t another time. | |
| She ne’er before in all her life | 65 |
| Once disobey’d him, maid nor wife. | |
| One argument she summ’d up all in, | |
| The thing was done and past recalling; | |
| And therefore hoped she should recover | |
| His favour when his passion’s over. | 70 |
| She valued not what others thought her, | |
| And was—his most obedient daughter.” | |
| Fair maidens all attend the Muse, | |
| Who now the wand’ring pair pursues: | |
| Away they rode in homely sort, | 75 |
| Their journey long, their money short; | |
| The loving couple well bemired; | |
| The horse and both the riders tired: | |
| Their vituals bad, their lodgings worse; | |
| Phyl cried! and John began to curse: | 80 |
| Phyl wished that she had strained a limb, | |
| When first she ventured out with him; | |
| John wish’d that he had broke a leg, | |
| When first for her he quitted Peg. | |
| But what adventures more befell them, | 85 |
| The Muse hath now no time to tell them; | |
| How Johnny wheedled, threatened, fawned, | |
| Till Phyllis all her trinkets pawn’d: | |
| How oft she broke her marriage vows, | |
| In kindness to maintain her spouse, | 90 |
| Till swains unwholesome spoiled the trade; | |
| For now the surgeon must be paid, | |
| To whom those perquisites are gone, | |
| In Christian justice due to John. | |
| When food and raiment now grew scarce, | 95 |
| Fate put a period to the farce, | |
| And with exact poetic justice; | |
| For John was landlord, Phyllis hostess; | |
| They keep at Staines the Old Blue Boar, | |
| Are cat and dog, and rogue and whore. | 100 |