The Humourous Poetry of the English Language

672
I please the young, I grace the old,
And am at once both hot and cold
Say what I am then, if you can,
And find the rhyme, and you're the man.
ON A CANNON.
Begotten, and born, and dying with noise,
The terror of women, and pleasure of boys,
Like the fiction of poets concerning the wind,
I'm chiefly unruly when strongest confined.
For silver and gold I don't trouble my head,
But all I delight in is pieces of lead;
Except when I trade with a ship or a town,
Why then I make pieces of iron go down.
One property more I would have you remark,
No lady was ever more fond of a spark;
The moment I get one my soul's all a-fire,
And I roar out my joy, and in transport expire.
ON THE FIVE SENSES.
All of us in one you'll find,
Brethren of a wondrous kind;
Yet among us all no brother
Knows one title of the other;
We in frequent counsels are,
And our marks of things declare,
Where, to us unknown, a clerk
Sits, and takes them in the dark.
He's the register of all
In our ken, both great and small;
By us forms his laws and rules,
He's our master, we his tools;
Yet we can with greatest ease
Turn and wind him where you please.
One of us alone can sleep,
Yet no watch the rest will keep,
But the moment that he closes,