To Matthew Dodsworth, Esq., On a Noble Captain Declaring that His Finger Was Broken by a Gate

T
The tale which I send, will, I’m sure, hit your fancy,
Of Sandy the Captain, and kitchen-maid Nancy;
The youth, by friend Colin’s good liquor made gay,
Met the damsel, and brimful of frolic and play,
He romped with, and kissed her, and tho’ he’d his gun,
In vain the poor lassie attempted to run;
She pouted and scolded, and liked not the joke,
And at least, in the struggle, his finger she broke.
Ah! who, my dear brother, would ever believe,
That a swain with a look so demure could deceive?
We ladies, kind creatures, devoid of suspicion,
Were each very ready to play the physician;
By Mackay, his sore finger in spirits was laid,
And a bag, by my orders, was carefully made.
For it neither by one, nor the other was thought
That with Nancy, instead of a gate he had fought.
But now the poor maiden has told us the truth,
As we cannot ourselves have a laugh at the youth;
We entreat that from us, you the hero would tell,
In his frolicks he ne’er should forget to bribe well;
For had but his kisses been seasoned with gold,
How he got his lame finger — had never been told.
284
Rating:

Comment form:

*Max text - 1500. Manual moderation.

Similar Poems:

Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood by William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
The child is father of the man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
(Wordsworth, "My Heart Leaps Up")
Read Poem
0
795
Rating:

Sonnet 104: To me, fair friend, you never can be old by William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah, yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:
For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred:
Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.
Read Poem
0
479
Rating:

A Ballad of Death by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears,
Girdle thyself with sighing for a girth
Upon the sides of mirth,
Cover thy lips and eyelids, let thine ears
Be filled with rumour of people sorrowing;
Make thee soft raiment out of woven sighs
Upon the flesh to cleave,
Set pains therein and many a grievous thing,
And many sorrows after each his wise
For armlet and for gorget and for sleeve.

O Love's lute heard about the lands of death,
Left hanged upon the trees that were therein;
O Love and Time and Sin,
Three singing mouths that mourn now underbreath,
Read Poem
0
594
Rating:

Israfel by Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God’s creatures. —KORAN In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
“Whose heart-strings are a lute”;
Read Poem
0
466
Rating:

The Things That Cause a Quiet Life by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
(Written by Martial)
My friend, the things that do attain
Read Poem
0
568
Rating:

Thirteen Implements by W. S. Graham
W. S. Graham
Do not allow me to sink, I said
To a top floating ribbon of kelp.
As I was lifted on each wave
And made to slide into the vale
I wanted not to drown. I wanted
To make it all right with my dear,
To tell my cat I’ll be away,
To have them all destroyed, the poems
Read Poem
0
573
Rating:

An Anatomy of the World by John Donne
John Donne
(excerpt)

AN ANATOMY OF THE WORLD
Wherein,
by occasion of the untimely death of Mistress
Elizabeth Drury, the frailty and the decay
of this whole world is represented
THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY When that rich soul which to her heaven is gone,
Whom all do celebrate, who know they have one
(For who is sure he hath a soul, unless
It see, and judge, and follow worthiness,
Read Poem
0
619
Rating:

On Freedom by Kahlil Gibran
Kahlil Gibran
And an orator said, Speak to us of Free-
dom.
And he answered:
At the city gate and by your fireside I
have seen you prostrate yourself and worship
your own freedom,
Even as slaves humble themselves before
a tyrant and praise him though he slays
Read Poem
0
507
Rating:

A Terre by Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen
(Being the philosophy of many Soldiers.) Sit on the bed; I'm blind, and three parts shell.
Be careful; can't shake hands now; never shall.
Read Poem
0
541
Rating:

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Read Poem
1
1.4K
Rating:

To the Negro Farmers of the United States by Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson
Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson
God washes clean the souls and hearts of you,
His favored ones, whose backs bend o’er the soil,
Which grudging gives to them requite for toil
In sober graces and in vision true.
God places in your hands the pow’r to do
A service sweet. Your gift supreme to foil
The bare-fanged wolves of hunger in the moil
Of Life’s activities. Yet all too few
Read Poem
0
415
Rating:

The Haunted Palace by Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace—
Radiant palace—reared its head.
In the monarch Thought’s dominion,
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!
Read Poem
0
454
Rating:

"How can I keep my maidenhead" by Robert Burns
Robert Burns
How can I keep my maidenhead,
My maidenhead, my maidenhead;
How can I keep my maidenhead,
Among sae mony men, O.

The Captain bad a guinea for’t,
A guinea for’t, a guinea for’t,
The Captain bad a guinea for’t,
The Colonel he bad ten, O.

But I’ll do as my minnie did,
My minnie did, my minnie did,
But I’ll do as my minnie did,
For siller I’ll hae nane, O.

Read Poem
0
503
Rating:

Campo dei Fiori by Czeslaw Milosz
Czeslaw Milosz
In Rome on the Campo dei Fiori
baskets of olives and lemons,
cobbles spattered with wine
and the wreckage of flowers.
Vendors cover the trestles
with rose-pink fish;
armfuls of dark grapes
heaped on peach-down.
Read Poem
0
535
Rating:

Ode on Solitude by Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.

Blest, who can unconcernedly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,

Read Poem
0
464
Rating:

The Photos by Diane Wakoski
Diane Wakoski
My sister in her well-tailored silk blouse hands me
the photo of my father
in naval uniform and white hat.
I say, “Oh, this is the one which Mama used to have on her dresser.”

My sister controls her face and furtively looks at my mother,
a sad rag bag of a woman, lumpy and sagging everywhere,
like a mattress at the Salvation Army, though with no holes or tears,
and says, “No.”
Read Poem
0
1.4K
Rating:

Speech: Bottom's Dream by William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
(from A Midsummer Night's Dream, spoken by Bottom) When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My next is “Most fair Pyramus.” Heigh-ho! Peter Quince? Flute the bellows-mender? Snout the tinker? Starveling? God’s my life, stol'n hence, and left me asleep? I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream—past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was—there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and methought I had—but man is but a patched fool if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream.It shall be called “Bottom’s Dream” because it hath no bottom. And I will sing it in the latter end of a play before the duke. Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at her death.
Read Poem
0
592
Rating:

Hotel François 1er by Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
It was a very little while and they had gone in front of it. It was that they had liked it would it bear. It was a very much adjoined a follower. Flower of an adding where a follower.
Have I come in. Will in suggestion.
They may like hours in catching.
It is always a pleasure to remember.
Have a habit.
Any name will very well wear better.
All who live round about there.
Have a manner.
The hotel François Ier.
Just winter so.
It is indubitably often that she is as denied to soften help to when it is in all in midst of which in vehemence to taken given in a bestowal show than left help in double.
Having noticed often that it is newly noticed which makes older often.
The world has become smaller and more beautiful.
The world is grown smaller and more beautiful. That is it.
Yes that is it.
Read Poem
0
533
Rating:

Faustine by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Ave Faustina Imperatrix, morituri te salutant. Lean back, and get some minutes' peace;
Let your head lean
Back to the shoulder with its fleece
Of locks, Faustine.
Read Poem
0
567
Rating:

Lines to Mr. Hodgson Written on Board the Lisbon Packet by Lord Byron (George Gordon)
Lord Byron (George Gordon)
Huzza! Hodgson, we are going,
Our embargo's off at last;
Favourable breezes blowing
Bend the canvass o'er the mast.
From aloft the signal's streaming,
Hark! the farewell gun is fir'd;
Women screeching, tars blaspheming,
Tell us that our time's expir'd.
Read Poem
0
466
Rating: