Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AN EPISTLE, by MATTHEW PRIOR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AN EPISTLE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When crowding folks with strange ill faces
Last Line: That one mouse eats, while t'other's starved.
Subject(s): Courts & Courtiers; England; Paris, France; Portraits; Time; English


WHEN crowding folks with strange ill faces
Were making legs and begging places,
And some with patents, some with merit,
Tired out by good Lord Dorset's spirit;
Sneaking I stood amongst the crew,
Desiring much to speak with you.
I waited while the clock struck thrice,
And footman brought out fifty lies;
Till, patience vexed, and legs grown weary,
I thought it was in vain to tarry:
But did opine it might be better,
By penny-post to send a letter;
Now if you miss of this epistle,
I'm balked again, and may go whistle.
My business, Sir, you'll quickly guess,
Is to desire some little place:
And fair pretensions I have for't,
Much need, and very small desert.
Whene'er I writ to you, I wanted;
I always begged, you always granted.
Now, as you took me up when little,
Gave me my learning and my vittle;
Asked for me, from my lord, things fitting,
Kind as I'd been your own begetting;
Confirm what formerly you've given,
Nor leave me now at six and seven,
As Sunderland has left Mun Stephen.
No family that takes a whelp
When first he laps and scarce can yelp,
Neglects or turns him out of gate
When he's grown up to dog's estate:
Nor parish, if they once adopt
The spurious brats by strollers dropt,
Leave them, when grown up lusty fellows,
To the wide world, that is, the gallows:
No, thank them for their love, that's worse
Than if they'd throttled them at nurse.
My uncle, rest his soul! when living,
Might have contrived me ways of thriving;
Taught me with cyder to replenish
My vats, or ebbing tide of rhenish.
So when for hock I drew prickt white-wine,
Swear't had the flavour, and was right wine.
Or sent me with ten pounds to Furnival's
inn, to some good rogue-attorney;
Where now, by forging deeds, and cheating,
I'd found some handsome ways of getting.
All this you made me quit, to follow
The sneaking whey-faced god Apollo;
Sent me among a fiddling crew
Of folks, I'd never seen nor knew,
Calliope, and God knows who.
To add no more invectives to it,
You spoiled the youth to make a poet.
In common justice, Sir, there's no man
That makes the whore, but keeps the woman.
Among all honest christian people,
Whoe'er breaks limbs maintains the cripple.
The sum of all I have to say,
Is, that you'd put me in some way;
And your petitioner shall pray --
There's one thing more I had almost slipped,
But that may do as well in postscript:
My friend Charles Montague's preferred;
Nor would I have it long observed,
That one mouse eats, while t'other's starved.





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