Poems and translations with the Sophy / written by the Honourable Sir John Denham, Knight of the Bath.

To Sir John Mennis being invited from Calice to Bologne to eat a Pig.

1.

ALL on a weeping Monday, With a fat Bulgarian Sloven, Little Admiral Iohn To Bologne is gone Whom I think they call old Loven.

2.

Hadst thou not thy fill of Carting With Aubrey Count of Oxon!* 1.1 When Nose lay in Breech And Breech made a Speech, So often cry'd a Pox on.

3.

A Knight by Land and Water Esteem'd at such a high rate,

When 'tis told in Kent, In a Cart that he went, They'll say now hang him Pirate.

4.

Thou might'st have ta'ne example, From what thou read'st in story; Being as worthy to sit On an ambling Tit, As thy Predecessor Dory.

5.

But Oh! the roof of Linnen, Intended for a shelter! But the Rain made an Ass Of Tilt of Canvas; And the Snow which you know is a Melter.

6.

But with thee to inveigle, That tender stripling, Astcot▪

Who was soak'd to the skin, Through Drugget so thin, Having neither Coat, nor Wastcoat;

7.

He being proudly mounted, Clad in Cloak of Plymouth, Defy'd Cart so base, For Thief without Grace, That goes to make a wry-mouth.

8.

Nor did he like the Omen, For fear it might be his doom, One day for to sing, With Gullet in string, A Hymne of Robert Wisdom.

9.

But what was all this business? For sure it was important:

For who rides i'th' wet, When affairs are not great, The neighbors make but a sport on't.

10.

To a goodly fat Sow's Baby, O Iohn, thou had'st a malice, The old driver of Swine That day sure was thine, Or thou hadst not quitted Calice.

Notes

• * 1.1

  We three riding in a Cart from Dun∣kirk to Calice with a fat Dutch Woman who broke wind all along.