The Humourous Poetry of the English Language

331
Let other swains, upon the best cream-laid
Or wire-wove note, their amorous strains indite;
Or, in despair, invoke the limner's aid
To paint the sufferings they can not write:
Upon their page, transfixed with numerous darts,
Let slender youths in agony expire;
Or, on one spit, let two pale pink calves' hearts
Roast at some fierce imaginary fire.
Let ANGELINA there, as in a bower
Of shrubs, unknown to LINDLEY, she reposes,
See her own ALFRED to the old church tower
Led on by CUPID, in a chain of roses;
Or let the wreath, when raised, a cage reveal,
Wherein two doves their little bills entwine;
(A vile device, which always makes me feel
Marriage would only add your bills to mine.)
For arts like these I've neither skill nor time;
But if you'll seek the Diggings, dearest maid,
And share my fortune in that happier clime,
Your berth is taken, and your passage paid.
For reading, lately, in my list of things,
"Twelve dozen shirts! twelve dozen collars," too!
The horrid host of buttons and of strings
Flashed on my spirit, and I thought--of you.
"Surely," I said, as in my chest I dived--
That vast receptacle of all things known--
"To teach this truth my outfit was contrived,
It is not good for man to be alone!"
Then fly with me! My bark is on the shore
(Her mark A 1, her size eight hundred tons),
And though she's nearly full, can take some more
Dry goods, by measurement--say GREEN and SONS.
Yes, fly with me! Had all our friends been blind,
We might have married, and been happy HERE;
But since young married folks the means must find
The eyes of stern society to cheer,