T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
“Was Ever Man of Nature’s Framing”
By Charles Cotton (1630–1687)| WAS ever man of Nature’s framing | |
| So given o’er to roving, | |
| Who have been twenty years a-taming | |
| By ways that are not worth the naming, | |
| And now must die of loving? | 5 |
| Hell take me if she ben’t so winning | |
| That now I love her mainly! | |
| And though in jest at the beginning, | |
| Yet now I’d wondrous fain be sinning, | |
| And so have told her plainly. | 10 |
| At which she cries I do not love her, | |
| And tells me of her honour; | |
| Then have I no way to disprove her, | |
| And my true passion to discover, | |
| But straight to fall upon her. | 15 |
| Which done, forsooth, she talks of wedding, | |
| But what will that avail her? | |
| For though I am old dog at bedding, | |
| I’m yet a man of so much reading | |
| That there I sure shall fail her. | 20 |
| No, hang me if I ever marry | |
| Till womankind grow stauncher! | |
| I do delight delights to vary, | |
| And love not in one hulk to tarry, | |
| But only trim and launch her. | 25 |