In peace, as in war, 'tis our young gallants' pride, To walk, each one i' the streets, with a rapier by his side, That none to do them injury may have pretence; Wretched Age, in poverty, must brook offence. Scarcely seem I Black thoughts continually Dim cogitations Follow and haunt me, Striving to daunt me, In my heart festering, In my ears whispering, Thy friends are treacherous, Fierce Anthropophagi, What scared St. Anthony, Hobgoblins, Lemures, Dreams of Antipodes, All dire illusions Causing confusions; Figments heretical, Scruples fantastical, Doubts diabolical, Abaddon vexeth me, Mahu perplexeth me, Lucifer teareth me Jesu! Maria! liberate nos ab his diris tentu tionibus Inimici. A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO. MAY the Babylonish curse If I can a passage see Or a fit expression find, Or a language to my mind, (Still the phrase is wide or scant) To take leave of thee, GREAT PLANT! Or in any terms relate Half my love, or half my hate : For I hate, yet love, thee so, And the passion to proceed More from a mistress than a weed. Sooty retainer to the vine, Bacchus' black servant, negro fine; Sorcerer, that mak'st us dote upon And, for thy pernicious sake, More and greater oaths to break 'Gainst women: thou thy siege dost lay Much too in the female way, While thou suck'st the lab'ring breath Thou in such a cloud dost bind us, That our worst foes cannot find us, And ill fortune, that would thwart us, While each man, thro' thy height'ning steam, Does like a smoking Etna seem, And all about us does express A Sicilian fruitfulness. Thou through such a mist dost shew us, That our best friends do not know us, And, for those allowed features, Due to reasonable creatures, Liken'st us to fell Chimeras, Monsters that, who see us, fear us; |