T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
The Quaker’s Song
Anonymous(From Pills to Purge Melancholy, 1707) |
AMONGST the pure ones all, | |
| Which Conscience doth profess; | |
| And yet that sort of Conscience, | |
| Doth practice nothing less: | |
| I mean the Sect of those Elect, | 5 |
| That loath to live by Merit; | |
| That leads their Lives with other Men’s Wives, | |
| According unto the Spirit. | |
| One met with a Holy Sister of ours, | |
| A Saint who dearly loved him: | 10 |
| And fain he would have kissed her, | |
| Because the Spirit moved him: | |
| But she denied, and he replied, | |
| You’re damned unless you do it; | |
| Therefore consent, do not repent, | 15 |
| For the Spirit doth move me to it. | |
| She not willing to offend, poor Soul, | |
| Yielded unto his Motion; | |
| And what these two did intend, | |
| Was out of pure Devotion; | 20 |
| To lie with a Friend and a Brother, | |
| She thought she should die no Sinner, | |
| But e’er five Months were past, | |
| The Spirit was quick within her. | |
| But what will the Wicked say, | 25 |
| When they shall hear of this Rumour; | |
| They’d laugh at us every Day, | |
| And Scoff us in every Corner: | |
| Let ’em do so still if that they will, | |
| We mean not to follow their Fashion, | 30 |
| They’re none of our Sect, nor of our Elect, | |
| Nor none of our Congregation. | |
| But when the time was come, | |
| That she was to be laid; | |
| It was no very great Crime, | 35 |
| Committed by her they said: | |
| ’Cause they did know, and she did show, | |
| ’Twas done by a Friend and a Brother, | |
| But a very great Sin they said it had been, | |
| If it had been done by another. | 40 |