AH, Pettius! I have done with Poetry, I've parted with my liberty For Cupid's slavery. Cupid, that peevish God, has singled out Me, from among the rhyming rout, For boys and girls to flout: December now has thrice stript every tree, Since bright Inachia's tyranny Has laid its chains on me. Now fie upon me! all about the town My Miss I treated up and down, I for a squire was known. Lord, what a whelp was I! to pule and whine, To sigh, to sob, and to repine! For thy sake, Mistress mine! Thou didst my verse, and thou my Muse despise, My want debas'd me in thine eyes. Thou wealth, not wit, didst prize. Fuddled with wine and love my secrets flew, Stretch'd on those racks, I told thee true What did myself undo. Well! -- plague me not too much, imperious dame, Lest I blaspheme thy charming name, And quench my former flame. I can give others place, and see thee die Damn'd with their prodigality, If I set on't, so stout am I. Thou know'st, my friend, thus have I often said, When, by her sorceries misled, Thou bad'st me home to bed: Ev'n then my practice gave my tongue the lie, I could not her curst house pass by: I fear'd, but could not fly. Since that, for young Lyciscus I'm grown mad; Inachia such a face ne'er had, It is a lovely lad. From his embraces I shall ne'er get free, Nor friends' advice, nor infamy Can disentangle me: Yet if some brighter object I should spy, That might perhaps debauch my eye, And shake my constancy. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MOTLEY by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE THE SONG OF A HEATHEN by RICHARD WATSON GILDER EPITAPH ON THE TOMB OF SIR EDWARD GILES AND HIS WIFE by ROBERT HERRICK MOONRISE AT SEA by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH I'M SADDEST WHEN I SING by THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY TO VENETIAN ARTISTS by WILLIAM BLAKE |