T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
A Satire on Marriage
By Thomas Brown (1662–1704)(From Works in Prose and Verse, 1730) THE HUSBAND’S the pilot, the wife is the ocean, | |
| He always in danger, she always in motion: | |
| And she that in wedlock twice hazards his carcass, | |
| Twice ventures a drowning, and faith that’s a hard case; | |
| Even at our own weapons the females defeat us, | 5 |
| And death, only death, can sign our quietus. | |
| Not to tell you sad stories of Liberty lost, | |
| How our mirth is all palled, and our pleasures all crost; | |
| This pagan confinement, this damnable station, | |
| Suits no order, nor age, nor degree in thy nation. | 10 |
| The Levite it keeps from parochial duty, | |
| For who can at once mind religion and beauty? | |
| The rich it alarms with expenses and trouble, | |
| And a poor beast, you know, can scarce carry double; | |
| ’Twas invented they tell you to keep us from falling. | 15 |
| Oh, the virtue and grace of a shrill caterwauling! | |
| But it palls in your game. Ah, but how do you know, Sir, | |
| How often your neighbour breaks up your enclosure? | |
| For this is the principal comfort of marriage, | |
| You must eat, tho’ a hundred have a spit in your porridge. | 20 |
| If at night you’re inactive, and fail of performing, | |
| Enter thunder and lightning, and bloodshed next morning. | |
| Cries the bone of your side, thanks, dear Mr. Horner, | |
| This comes of your sinning with Crape in the corner. | |
| Then to make up the breach, all your strength you must rally, | 25 |
| And labor and sweat like a slave at the galley. | |
| Yet still you must charge, oh, blessed condition! | |
| Tho’ you know, to your cost, you’ve no ammunition. | |
| ’Till at last, my dear mortified tool of a man, | |
| You’re not able to make a poor flash in the pan. | 30 |
| Fire, female and flood, begin with a letter, | |
| And the world’s for them all not a farthing the better. | |
| Your flood is soon gone; you your fire may humble, | |
| If into the flame store of water you tumble; | |
| But to cool the damned heat of your wife’s titilation | 35 |
| You may use half the engines and pumps in the nation, | |
| But may piss out as well the last conflagration. | |
| Thus, Sir, I have sent you my thoughts of the matter, | |
| Judge as you please, but I scorn for to flatter. | |