| T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22. | | | | The End | | Anonymous |
| | (From Songs, Comic, and Satyrical, by George Alexander Stevens, 1782) |
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PAPILIO the rich, in the hurry of love, | |
| Resolving to wed, to fair Arabell drove; | |
| He made his proposals, he begg’d she would fix, | |
| What maid could say no to a new Coach-and-six? | |
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| We’ll suppose they were wed, the guests bid, supper done, | 5 |
| The fond pair in bed, and the stocking was thrown: | |
| The Bride lay expecting to what this wou’d tend, | |
| Since created a wife, wish’d to know for what end. | |
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| On the velvet peach oft, as the gaudy fly rests, | |
| The Bridegroom’s lips stopp’d, on Love’s pillows, her breasts: | 10 |
| All amazement, impassive, the heart-heaving fair, | |
| With a sigh seem’d to prompt him, don’t stay too long there. | |
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| Round her waist, and round such a waist circling his arms, | |
| He raptures rehears’d on her unpossess’d charms. | |
| Says the fair one, and gap’d, I hear all you pretend, | 15 |
| But now for I’m sleepy, pray come to an end. | |
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| My love ne’er shall end, ’Squire Shadow reply’d, | |
| But still unattempting, lay stretch’d at her side: | |
| She made feints, as if something she meant to defend, | |
| But found out, at last, it was all to no end. | 20 |
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| In disdain starting up from the impotent boy, | |
| She, sighing, pronounc’d, there’s an end of my joy; | |
| They resolv’d this advice to her sex she wou’d send, | |
| Ne’er to wed till they’re sure they can wed to some end. | |
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| And which end is that? why the end which prevails, | 25 |
| Ploughs, ships, birds, and fishes are steered by their tails: | |
| And tho’ man and wife for the head may contend, | |
| I’m sure they’re best pleas’d when they gain t’other end. | |
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| The end of our wishes, the end of our wives, | |
| The end of our loves, and the end of our lives, | 30 |
| The end of conjunction, ’twixt mistress and male, | |
| Tho’ the head may design, has its end in the tail. | |
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| ’Tis time tho’ to finish, if ought I intend, | |
| Lest, like a bad husband, I come to no end; | |
| The ending I mean is what none will think wrong, | 35 |
| And that is, to make now an end of my song. | | | |
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