Oh, this damned trade of versifying Has brought us all to hell for lying! For writing what we do not think; Merely to make the verse cry clink. For rather than abuse the metre, Black shall be white, Paul shall be Peter.
One time I called a lady, whore; Which in my soul she was no more Than I am; a brave lass, no beggar, And true, as ever man laid leg o’er. Not out of malice, Jove’s my witness, But merely for the verses fitness. “Now we’re all made,” said I, “if luck hold,” And then I called a fellow cuckold; Though the wife was (or I’ll be hanged) As good a wench as ever twanged. I was once plaguely put to’t; This would not hit, that would not do’t; At last, I circumcised (’tis true) A Christian, and baptized a Jew. Nay I’ve made Herod innocent For rhyming to Long-Parliament: Now to conclude, we are all damned ho, For nothing but a game at crambo. And for a little jingling pleasure, Condemned to torments without measure: Which is a little hard in my sense, To fry thus for poetic licence. ’Tis not for sin of thought or deed, But for bare sounds, and words we bleed: While the cur Cerberus lies growling In consort with our catterwowling.
So soon as he had done. “There is not in the world,” said I, “a more ridiculous frenzy than yours, to be poetising in hell. The humour sticks close sure, or the fire would have fetched it out.” “Nay,” cried a devil, “these versifiers are a strange generation of buffoons. The time that others spend in tears and groans for their sins and follies, these wretches employ in songs and madrigals; and if they chance to light upon the critical minute, and get a snap at a lady, all’s worth nothing, unless the whole kingdom ring of it, in some miserable sing-song or other, under the name forsooth of Phyllis, Chloris, Silvia, or the like: and the goodly idol must be decked and dressed up with diamond, pearl, rubies, musk, and amber, and both the Indies are too little to furnish eyes, lips, and teeth for this imaginary goddess. And yet after all this magnificence and bounty, it would put the poor devil’s credit upon the stretch, to take up an old petticoat in Long Lane, or a pair of cast-shoes, at the next cobbler’s. Beside, we can give no account either of their country or religion. They have Christian names, but most heretical souls; they are Arabians in their hearts: and in their language, Gentiles; but to say the truth, they fall short of the right Pagans in their manners.” If I stay here a little longer, (said I to myself) this spiteful devil will hit me over the thumbs ere I’m aware; for I was half jealous, that he took me already for a piece of a poet.