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

A Dialogue between Sir John Pooley and Mr. Thomas Killigrew.

P.

TO thee dear Thom. my self addressing, Most queremoniously confessing, That I of late have been compressing.

Destitute of my wonted Gravity, I perpetrated Arts of Pravity, In a contagious Concavity.

Making efforts with all my Puissance, For some Venereal Reiouissance, I got (as one may say) a nuysance.

K.

Come leave this fooling Cousin Pooley, And in plain English tell us truely Why under th' eyes you look so blewly?

'Tis not your hard words will avail you, Your Latin and your Greek will fail you, Till you speak plainly what doth ail you.

When young, you led a life Monastick, And wore a Vest Ecclesiastick; Now in your Age you grow Fantastick.

P.

Without more Preface or Formality, A Female of Malignant Quality Set fire on Label of Mortality.

The Faeces of which Ulceration, Brought o're the Helm a Distillation, Through the Instrument of Propagation.

K.

Then Cousin, (as I guess the matter) You have been an old Fornicater, And now are shot 'twixt wind and Water.

Your style has such an ill complexion, That from your breath I fear infection, That even your mouth needs an injection.

You that were once so oeconomick, Quitting the thrifty style Laconick, Turn Prodigal in Makeronick.

Yet be of comfort, I shall send a Person of knowledge who can mend a Disaster in your nether end-a—

Whether it Pullen be or Shanker, Cordee and crooked like an Anchor, Your cure too costs you but a spanker.

Or though your Piss be sharp as Razor, Do but confer with Dr. Frazer, Hee'l make your Running Nag a Pacer.

Nor shall you need your Silver quick Sir, Take Mongo Murry's Black Elixir, And in a week it Cures your P—Sir.

But you that are a Man of Learning, So read in Virgil, so discerning, Methinks towards fifty should take warning.

Once in a Pit you did miscarry,* 1.1 That danger might have made one wary; This Pit is deeper then the Quarry.

P.

Give me not such disconsolation, Having now cur'd my Inflamation, To Ulcerate my Reputation.

Though it may gain the Ladies favour, Yet it may raise an evil savour Upon all grave and staid behaviour.

And I will rub my Mater Pia, To find a Rhyme to Gonorrheia, And put it in my Letania.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Hunting near Paris he and his Horse fell into a Quarry