T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
The Question
Anonymous(From New Crazy Tales, 1783) TELL me, good doctor, what’s the cause, | |
(You have studied nature’s laws) | |
Why women, of one shape and feature, | |
So far should differ in their nature. | |
By nature here I do not mean | 5 |
A temper eaten with the spleen; | |
No one whose happy soul’s at ease, | |
And has no thought but how to please. | |
But what I mean is only this, | |
Why one delights in amorous bliss, | 10 |
While t’other, who has equal charms, | |
A stranger is to love’s alarms, | |
And talks of love with great despite | |
In which her sister takes delight? | |
To vouch the truth of what I say, | 15 |
Two men I know both young and gay, | |
Who wearied of a single life, | |
Took each of them a lovely wife, | |
The daughters of a certain knight, | |
Alike in features, shape, and height; | 20 |
I saw them married, put to bed | |
Each husband got a maidenhead, | |
Next day the bridegrooms were content, | |
And I down to the country went. | |
Within a week I came to town, | 25 |
And found my friends were both cast down; | |
I could not bear to see them so, | |
And to the one did frankly go, | |
And asked the reason of his grief, | |
He said, I’m ruined past relief. | 30 |
You see, my wife’s a lovely sight, | |
And formed to give a man delight; | |
Her eyes and face to love entice, | |
But, ah! my friend, she’s cold as ice: | |
No joy she gives, no joy can feel, | 35 |
Nor meets my love with equal zeal; | |
And spite of all her outward charms, | |
Like marble lies within my arms; | |
No calenture can warm her blood, | |
Nor thaw the dull, the stagnate flood. | 40 |
Thus I am made a slave for life, | |
Tied to a fair, but joyless wife. | |
I left this friend in discontent, | |
And to the other straightway went; | |
I saw he was but ill at ease, | 45 |
And kindly asked him his disease. | |
My friend, said he, then made a pause, | |
You see me sad and ask the cause; | |
From such a friend I’ll nothing hide, | |
Cursed be the day I got a bride; | 50 |
For tho’ she is made up of charms, | |
And came a virgin to my arms, | |
Yet I am wearied of my life, | |
And wish I ne’er had got a wife; | |
She is so full of wanton play, | 55 |
I get no rest by night or day; | |
Her youthful blood is still on fire, | |
She is all love and hot desire; | |
Her pulse beats high, her bosom heaves, | |
The more I do, the more she craves. | 60 |
But when by her resistless charms, | |
She draws me to her eager arms, | |
She’s with the joy transported quite, | |
And dies away in vast delight. | |
Last night I like a parson toiled, | 65 |
But was, in spite of vigor, foiled; | |
I laid me down, and would have slept, | |
When to my breast she fondly crept. | |
And, giving me a burning kiss, | |
Begged that I would renew the bliss. | 70 |
I asked her how she could support | |
The violence of amorous sport. | |
My life, said she, and squeezed my finger, | |
The more I’m thinged, I’m still the thinger. | |
THE ANSWER Good sir, as for your natural question, | 75 |
(A thing, too true to make a jest on) | |
At present I decline the task, | |
’Tis you should answer, I should ask. | |
Some things there are, if I might quote them, | |
Which can never reach to bottom; | 80 |
Too ticklish to be nearly touched, | |
You may in simile be couched. | |
Two fiddles lay, in size and frame | |
Alike, their wood and strings the same; | |
Them both by turns a minstrel tried, | 85 |
And with the stick their bellies plied. | |
A clown stood by astonished much | |
How with the same apparent touch, | |
One sounded with melodious voice, | |
Whilst t’other made a jarring noise. | 90 |
To him the minstrel thus; Thou dunderhead, | |
With as just cause thou might have wondered | |
At Winter’s frost, or heat in June, | |
This fiddle here is out of tune. | |
Fiddles alone are not to blame, | 95 |
The sticks must often take the shame; | |
Too feeble, short, or limber chosen, | |
And often fail for want of resin. | |