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(From New Crazy Tales, 1783)
TELL me, good doctor, what’s the cause, | |
| (You have studied nature’s laws) | |
| Why women, of one shape and feature, | |
| So far should differ in their nature. | |
| By nature here I do not mean | 5 |
| A temper eaten with the spleen; | |
| No one whose happy soul’s at ease, | |
| And has no thought but how to please. | |
| But what I mean is only this, | |
| Why one delights in amorous bliss, | 10 |
| While t’other, who has equal charms, | |
| A stranger is to love’s alarms, | |
| And talks of love with great despite | |
| In which her sister takes delight? | |
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| To vouch the truth of what I say, | 15 |
| Two men I know both young and gay, | |
| Who wearied of a single life, | |
| Took each of them a lovely wife, | |
| The daughters of a certain knight, | |
| Alike in features, shape, and height; | 20 |
| I saw them married, put to bed | |
| Each husband got a maidenhead, | |
| Next day the bridegrooms were content, | |
| And I down to the country went. | |
| Within a week I came to town, | 25 |
| And found my friends were both cast down; | |
| I could not bear to see them so, | |
| And to the one did frankly go, | |
| And asked the reason of his grief, | |
| He said, I’m ruined past relief. | 30 |
| You see, my wife’s a lovely sight, | |
| And formed to give a man delight; | |
| Her eyes and face to love entice, | |
| But, ah! my friend, she’s cold as ice: | |
| No joy she gives, no joy can feel, | 35 |
| Nor meets my love with equal zeal; | |
| And spite of all her outward charms, | |
| Like marble lies within my arms; | |
| No calenture can warm her blood, | |
| Nor thaw the dull, the stagnate flood. | 40 |
| Thus I am made a slave for life, | |
| Tied to a fair, but joyless wife. | |
| |
| I left this friend in discontent, | |
| And to the other straightway went; | |
| I saw he was but ill at ease, | 45 |
| And kindly asked him his disease. | |
| My friend, said he, then made a pause, | |
| You see me sad and ask the cause; | |
| From such a friend I’ll nothing hide, | |
| Cursed be the day I got a bride; | 50 |
| For tho’ she is made up of charms, | |
| And came a virgin to my arms, | |
| Yet I am wearied of my life, | |
| And wish I ne’er had got a wife; | |
| She is so full of wanton play, | 55 |
| I get no rest by night or day; | |
| Her youthful blood is still on fire, | |
| She is all love and hot desire; | |
| Her pulse beats high, her bosom heaves, | |
| The more I do, the more she craves. | 60 |
| But when by her resistless charms, | |
| She draws me to her eager arms, | |
| She’s with the joy transported quite, | |
| And dies away in vast delight. | |
| Last night I like a parson toiled, | 65 |
| But was, in spite of vigor, foiled; | |
| I laid me down, and would have slept, | |
| When to my breast she fondly crept. | |
| And, giving me a burning kiss, | |
| Begged that I would renew the bliss. | 70 |
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| I asked her how she could support | |
| The violence of amorous sport. | |
| My life, said she, and squeezed my finger, | |
| The more I’m thinged, I’m still the thinger. | |
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THE ANSWER Good sir, as for your natural question, | 75 |
| (A thing, too true to make a jest on) | |
| At present I decline the task, | |
| ’Tis you should answer, I should ask. | |
| Some things there are, if I might quote them, | |
| Which can never reach to bottom; | 80 |
| Too ticklish to be nearly touched, | |
| You may in simile be couched. | |
| Two fiddles lay, in size and frame | |
| Alike, their wood and strings the same; | |
| Them both by turns a minstrel tried, | 85 |
| And with the stick their bellies plied. | |
| A clown stood by astonished much | |
| How with the same apparent touch, | |
| One sounded with melodious voice, | |
| Whilst t’other made a jarring noise. | 90 |
| To him the minstrel thus; Thou dunderhead, | |
| With as just cause thou might have wondered | |
| At Winter’s frost, or heat in June, | |
| This fiddle here is out of tune. | |
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| Fiddles alone are not to blame, | 95 |
| The sticks must often take the shame; | |
| Too feeble, short, or limber chosen, | |
| And often fail for want of resin. | |
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