Classic Poem

Poxe take you all, from you my sorrowes swell
Your Treacherous Faith makes me turne Infidell.
Pray vexe me not for Heavens sake, or rather
For your poore Childrens sake, or for their Father.
You trouble me in vaine; whate're you say
I cannot, will not, nay, I ought not pay.
You are Extortioners; I was not sent
T'encrease your sinnes, but make you all repent
That e're you trusted me; wee're even here,
I bought too cheap, because you sold too deare.
Learne Conscience of Your Wives, for they I sweare
For the most part trade in the better Ware.
Heark Reader if thou never yet hadst one,
Ile shew the torments of a Cambridge Dunne .
He railes where 'ere he comes, and yet can say
But this, that Randolph did not keep his day.
What? can I keep the Day, or stop the Sunne
From setting, or the night from coming on.
Could I have kept daies, I had chang'd the doome
Of Times and Seasons, that had never come.
These evill spirits haunt me every day,
And will not let me eat, study, or pray.
I am so much in their Books that 'tis known
I am too seldome frequent in my owne .
What damage given to my Doores might be
If Doores might Actions have of Battery!
And when they find their coming to no end,
They Dunne by proxie, and their Letters send,
In such a stile as I could never find
In Tullies long, or Seneca's short wind.
Good Master Randolph, Pardon me, I pray
If I remember you forget your day.
I kindly dealt with you, and it would be
Unkind in you, not to be kind to me.
You know, Sir, I must pay for what I have,
My Creditors will be paid, therefore I crave
Pay me as I pay them Sir, for one Brother
Is bound in Conscience to pay another.
Besides my Landlord would not be content
If I should dodge with him for's quarters rent.
My Wife lyes in too, and I needs must pay
The Midwife least the foole be cast away.
And tis a second charge to me poore man
To make the new borne Babe a Christian,
Besides the Churching a third charge will be
In butter'd Habberdine and Frummetie .
Thus hoping you will make a courteous end
I rest (I would thou would'st) Your loving Friend.

A.B. M.H. T.B. H.L. I.O.
L.F. M.G. P.W. Nay I know
You have the same stile all, and as for me
Such as your stile is, shall your paiment be,
Just all alike, see, what a cursed spell
Charmes Divells up, to make my Chamber Hell.
This some starv'd Prentice brings, one that does looke
With a face blurr'd more then his Masters Book.
One that in any chink can peeping lye
More slender then the yard he measures by:
When my poore stomack barks for meat I dare
Scarce humor it, they make me live by aire,
As the Camelions doe; and if none pay
Better then I have done, even so may they.
When I would goe to Chappell, they betray
My zeale, and when I only meant to pray
Unto my God, faith all I have to doe
Is to pray them, and glad they'l hear me too.
Nay should I preach, the Raschalls are so vext,
They'd fee a Beadle to arrest my Text;
And sue if such a suit might granted be,
My use and Doctrine to an Outlary.
This stings, yet what my gall most works upon
Is that the hope of my revenge is gone:
For were I but to deale with such as those,
That knew the danger of my Verse or Prose,
Ide steep my Muse in Vineger and Gall
Till the fierce scold grew sharpe and hang'd 'um all.
But those I am to deale with are so dull,
(Though got by Schollers) he that is most full
Of Understanding can but hither come,
Imprimis, Item , and the Totall summe .
I do not wish them Ægypts plagues, but even
As bad as they; Ile add unto them seaven.
I wish not Grasse-hoppers, Froggs, & Lice come downe
But clowds of Mothes in every shop i' th' Towne.
Then honest Divell to their inke convey
Some Aqua fortis that may eat away
Their books. To adde more torments to their lives
Heaven I beseech thee, send 'um handsome Wives,
Such as will poxe their flesh, 'till sores grow in't
That all their Linnen may be spent in lint.
And give them Children with ingenuous faces,
Indued with all the Ornaments and Graces
Of Soule and Body, that it may be known
To others, and themselves they'r not their own.
And if this vex 'um not, Ile grieve the Towne
With this curse, States put Trinity-Lecture downe.
But my last Imprecation this shall bee,
May they more Debtors have, and all like me.