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Earl of Rochester

Caesar van Everdingen. Nymphs offering young Bacchus wine, 1670-8.


On the Women about Town.

Too long the wise Commons have been in debate
About money and conscience, those trifles of state,
Whilst dangerous grievances daily increase,
And the subject can't riot in safety and peace;
Unless, as against Irish cattle before,
You now make an act to forbid Irish whore.

The coots black and white, Clanbrassill and Fox,
Invade us with impudence, beauty, and pox.
They carry a fate which no man can oppose:
The loss of his heart and the fall of his nose.
Should he dully resist, yet would each take upon her
To beseech him to do 't, and engage him in honor.

O ye merciful powers who of mortals take care,
Make the women more modest, more sound, or less fair!
Is it just that with death cruel love should conspire,
And our tarses be burnt by our hearts taking fire?
There's an end of communion if humble believers
Must be damned in the cup like unworthy receivers.





5





10





15


tarses, penises.



The Complete Poems of the Earl of Rochester. David M. Vieth, ed.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. 46-7.




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Restoration & 18th-century:

Introduction
Samuel Butler
John Dryden
Samuel Pepys
John Bunyan
Aphra Behn
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea
Mary Astell
William Congreve
Matthew Prior
Daniel Defoe
John Gay
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Jonathan Swift
Joseph Addison
Sir Richard Steele
James Thomson
Alexander Pope
Dr. Samuel Johnson
Thomas Gray
William Collins
Christopher Smart
Oliver Goldsmith
George Crabbe
William Cowper
James Boswell
Essays and Articles
Additional Sources



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