| T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22. | | | | Chastity | | Anonymous |
| | (From Songs, Comic, and Satyrical, by George Alexander Stevens, 1782) |
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I WONDER, quote Dame, as her Spouse she embraces, | |
| How strumpets can look, how they dare show their faces, | |
| And those wicked Wives who from Husbands’ arms fly, | |
| Lord, where do they think they must go when they die? | |
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| But next day, by Husband, with ’Prentice Boy caught, | 5 |
| When she from the bed was to Toilet-glass brought, | |
| Her head he held up, with this gentle Rebuke— | |
| My Dear! you were wishing to know how Whores look! | |
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| Turn your eyes to that table, at once you will see | |
| What faces Jades wear; then, my Dear, behold me. | 10 |
| Your Features confess the Adulteress clear, | |
| My visage exhibits how Cuckolds appear. | |
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| You ask’d where bad Wives go? why, really, my Chick, | |
| You must with the rest of them go to Old Nick! | |
| If Beelzebub don’t such damned Tennants disown, | 15 |
| For bad Wives, he knows make a Hell of their own. | |
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| All the world would be wed, if the Clergy could show | |
| Any rule in the service to change I for O: | |
| How happy the Union of Marriage would prove, | |
| Not long as we Live joined, but long as we Love. | 20 |
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| At his feet she sunk down, Sorrow lent her such Moans | |
| That Resentment was gagged by her Tears and her Tones. | |
| What could Hubby do then? what could then Hubby do? | |
| But Sympathy struck, as she cried, he cried too. | |
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| O Corregio! could I Sigismunda design | 25 |
| Or exhibit a Magdalen Guido, like thine, | |
| I would paint the fond Look which the Penitent stole, | |
| That pierced her soft Partner, and sunk to his Soul. | |
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| Transported to doating! he raised the Distressed, | |
| And tenderly held her long time to his Breast; | 30 |
| On the Bed gently laid her, by her gently laid, | |
| And the Breach there was closed the same way it was made. | | | |
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