Classic Poem

If I can guess the Devil choke me
What horrid fury could provoke thee
To use thy railing, scurrilous wit
Gainst prick and cunt, the source of it:
For what but prick and cunt does raise
Our thoughts to songs and roundelays,
Enables us to anagrams
And other amorous flim flams?
Then we write plays and so proceed
To bays, the poet's sacred weed.
Hast no respect for God Priapus?
That ancient story should not scape us:
Priapus was a Roman God,
(But in plain English, prick and cod)
Who pleased their sisters, wives, and daughters,
Guarded their pippins and pomwaters,
For at the orchard's utmost entry
This mighty Deity stood sentry,
Invested in a tattered blanket,
To scare the magpies from their banquet.
But this may serve to show we trample
On rule and method by example
Of modern writers who, to snap at all,
Will talk of Caesar in the Capitol,
Of Cynthia's beams and Sol's bright ray,
Known foe to buttermilk and whey,
Which softens wax and hardens clay.
All this without the least connection,
Which to say truth's enough to vex one;
But farewell all poetic dizziness,
And now to come unto the business.
Tell the bright nymph how sad and pensively —
E'er since we used her so offensively,
In dismal shades — with arms across
I sit lamenting of my loss.
To Echo I her name commend,
Who has it now at her tongue's end,
And parrot-like repeats the same;
For should you talk of Tamberlaine,
Cuffley! she cries at the same time,
Though the last accent does not rhyme —
Far more than Echo e'er did yet
For Phyllis or bright Amoret.
With penknife keen, of moderate size,
As bright and piercing as her eyes,
(A glittering weapon, which would scorn
To pare a nail or cut a corn)
Upon the trees of smoothest bark
I carve her name or else her mark,
Which commonly's a bleeding heart,
A weeping eye, or flaming dart.
Here on a beech, like amorous sot,
I sometimes carve a true-love's knot.
There a tall oak her name does wear,
In a large spreading character.
I chose the fairest and the best
Of all the grove: among the rest
I carved it on a lofty pine,
Who wept a pint of turpentine;
Such was the terror of her name,
By the report of evil fame
Who tired with immoderate flight
Had lodged upon his boughs all night.
The wary tree, who feared a clap,
And knew the virtue of his sap,
Dropped balsam into every wound
And in an hour's time was sound.
But you are unacquainted yet
With half the power of Amoret.
For she can drink as well as swive,
Her growing empire still must thrive;
Our hearts' weak forts we must resign
When beauty does its forces join
With man's strong enemy, good wine.
This I was told by my Lord O'Brian,
A man whose words I much rely on:
He kept touch and came down hither
When you were scared by the foul weather;
But if thou wouldst forgiven be,
Say that a cunt detained thee.
Cunt! whose strong charms the world bewitches,
The joy of kings! the beggar's riches!
The courtier's business! statesman's leisure!
The tired tinker's ease and pleasure!
Of which alas I've leave to prate
But oh the rigor of my fate!
For want of bouncing bona roba
Lasciva est nobis pagina vita proba.
For that rhyme I was fain to fumble;
When Pegasus begins to stumble,
'Tis time to rest, your very humble.