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 | John Milton |
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ON THE UNIVERSITY CARRIER,
Who sickened in the time of his vacancy, being forbid
to go to London by reason of the plague.*
HERE lies old Hobson; Death hath broke his girt,
And here, alas, hath laid him in the dirt;
Or else the ways being foul, twenty to one,
He's here stuck in a slough, and overthrown.
'Twas such a shifter, that if truth were known,
Death was half glad when he had got him down;
For he had, any time this ten years full,
Dodg'd with him betwixt Cambridge and The Bull.†
And surely Death could never have prevail'd,
Had not his weekly course of carriage fail'd;
But lately finding him so long at home,
And thinking now his journey's end was come,
And that he had ta'en up his latest inn;
In the kind office of a chamberlain,
Show'd him his room, where he must lodge that night,
Pull'd off his boots, and took away the light.
If any ask for him, it shall be said,
"Hobson has supp'd, and 's newly gone to bed."
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* Hobson, the Cambridge carrier, died Jan. 1, 1630, while
the plague was in London.
† In Bishopsgate-street, London.
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The Poetical Works of John Milton.
London: J. J. Chidley, 1847. 451.
 | to Works of John Milton |
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John Milton
