Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE CATALOGUE, by CHARLES MORRIS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CATALOGUE, by                    
First Line: O, that's what you mean, now, a bit of a song
Last Line: Just to keep us a-going and season the wine.
Subject(s): Love - Complaints


O, THAT's what you mean now, a bit of a song,
Arrah, faith, then here goes, you sha'n't bother me long;
I require no teazing, no praying, nor stuff,
By my soul, if you wish it, I 'm ready enough
To give you no end; you shall have a beginning,
And, troth, though the music is not over fine,
'T is a bit of a thing that a body might sing
Just to set us a-going and season the wine.

O, I once was a lover, like some of you here,
And could feed a whole night on a sigh or a tear,
No sunshine I knew but from Kitty's black eye,
And the world was a desert when she was n't by;
But the devil knows how, I got fond of Miss Betty,
And Kitty slipt out of this bosom of mine.
'T is a bit of a thing that a body might sing
Just to set us a-going and season the wine.

Now Betty had eyes soft and blue as the sky,
And the lily was black when her bosom was nigh;
O, I vowed and I swore if she 'd not a kind eye
I 'd give up the whole world and in banishment die;
But Nancy came by, a round plump little creature,
And fixed in my heart quite another design.
'T is a bit of a thing that a body might sing
Just to set us a-going and season the wine.

Little Nance, like a Hebe, was buxom and gay,
Had a bloom like the rose and was fresher than May;
O, I felt if she frowned I would die by a rope,
And my bosom would burst if she slighted my hope;
But the slim, taper, elegant Fanny looked at me,
And, troth, I no longer for Nancy could pine.
'T is a bit of a thing that a body might sing
Just to set us a-going and season the wine.

Now Fanny's light frame was so slender and fine
That she skimmed in the air like a shadow divine.
Her motion bewitched, and to my loving eye
'T was an angel soft gliding 'twixt earth and the sky.
'T was all mighty well till I saw her fat sister,
And that gave a turn I could never define.
'T is a bit of a thing that a body might sing
Just to set us a-going and season the wine.

O, so I go on, ever constantly blest,
For I find I 've a great stock of love in my breast;
And it never grows less, for whenever I try
To get one in my heart, I get two in my eye.
To all kinds of beauty I bow with devotion,
And all kinds of liquor by turns I make mine;
So I 'll finish the thing that another may sing,
Just to keep us a-going and season the wine.





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