Poems: by Francis Beaumont, Gent.: Viz. The hermaphrodite. The remedy of love. Elegies. Sonnets, with other poems.

Ʋpon the Hermaphrodite, written since by Mr J. Cleaveland.

PRobleme of Sexes; must thou likewise be As disputable in thy Pedegree? Thou twins-in-one, in whom Dame Nature tries To throw lesse than Aums-ace upon two Dice: Wert thou serv'd up two in one dish, the rather To split thy Sire into a double Father? True, the Worlds scales are even: what the maine In one place gets, another quits againe. Nature lost one by thee, and therefore must Slice one in two to keep her number just: Plurality of Livings is thy state, And therefore mine must be impropriate. For since the child is mine, and yet the claime Is intercepted by anothers Name. Never did steeple carry double truer, His is the Donative, and mine the Cure. Then say my Muse (and without more dispute) Who is't that Fame doth superinstitute? The Theban Wittall, when he once descries Jove is his Rivall, fals to sacrifice: That Name hath tipt his hornes: see on his knees A health to Hansen, Kelder, Hercules: Nay, sublunary Cuckolds are content To entertaine their Fate with complement:

And shall not he be proud whom Randolph daines To quarter with his Muse, both Armes and Braines? Gramercy Gossip, I rejoyce to see, Shee hath got a leap of such a Barbary. Talke not of hornes, hornes are the Poets Crest; For since the Muses left their former nest, To found a Nunnery in Randolph's quill, Cuckold Pernassus is a forked hill.

But stay, I've wak'd his dust, his Marble stirs, And brings the worms for his Compurgators. Can Ghost have naturall sons? say Ogg it's meet? Penance beare date after the winding sheet? Were it a Phaenix (as the double kind May seem to prove, being there's two combin'd) It would disclaime my right, and that it were The lawfull issue of his ashes, sweare. But was shee dead? did not his soule translate Her selfe, into a shop of lesser rate? Or breake up house, like an expensive Lord, That gives his purse a fob, and lives at board? Let old Pythagoras but play the pimp, And still ther'es hopes 't may prove his bastard Mip: But I'me prophane; for grant the world had one With whom he might contract an Union, They two were one, yet like an Eagle spread, I'th' Body joyn'd, but parted in the head.

For you my brat, that pose the Porph'ry Chaire, Pope John or Joane, or whatsoe're you are, You are a Nephew, grieve not at your state, For all the world is illegitimate; Man cannot get a man, unlesse the Sun Club to the Act of Generation. The Sun and Man get Man, thus Tom and I Are the joynt Fathers of thy Poetry.

For since (blest shade) this Verse is Male, but mine O'th weaker sex, a fancy femenine. Wee'l part the Child, and yet commit no slaughter; So shall it be thy son, and yet my daughter.