Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MR RANDOLPH'S PETITION TO HIS CREDITORS, by THOMAS RANDOLPH



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MR RANDOLPH'S PETITION TO HIS CREDITORS, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Pox take you all! From you my sorrows swell!
Last Line: May they more debtors have, and all like me!
Subject(s): Debt


POX take you all! from you my sorrows swell!
Your treacherous faith makes me turn infidel.
Pray vex me not for heaven's sake, or rather
For your poor children's sake, or for their father.
You trouble me in vain, whate'er you say:
I cannot, will not, nay, I ought not pay,
You are extortioners; I was not sent
T' increase your sins, but make you all repent
That e'er you trusted me; we're even here:
I bought too cheap, because you sold too dear.
Learn conscience of your wives; for they, I swear,
For the most part trade in the better ware.
hark, reader, if thou never yet hadst one,
I'll show the torments of a Cambridge dun.
He rails, where'er he comes, and yet can say
But this -- that Randolph did not keep his day.
What, can I keep the day, or stop the sun
From setting, or the night from coming on.
Could I have kept days, I had chang'd the doom
Of times and seasons that had never come.
These evil spirits haunt me every day,
And will not let me eat, study, or pray.
I am so much in their books, that'tis known
I am too seldom frequent in my own.
What damage given to my doors might be,
If doors might actions have of battery!
And when they find their coming to no end,
They dun by proxy, and their letters send,
In such a style as I could never find
In Tully's long, or Seneca's short wind.

Good Master Randolph, pardon me (I pray),
If I remember you forget your day.
I kindly dealt with you, and it would be
Unkind in you not to be kind to me.
You know, sir, I must pay for what I have.
My creditors will be paid, therefore I crave
Pay me as I pay them, sir, for one brother
Is bound in conscience to pay another.
Besides, my landlord would not be content
If I should dodge with him for's quarter's rent.
My wife lies in, too, and I needs must pay
The midwife, lest the fool be cast away.
And 'tis a second charge to me (poor man)
To make the new-born babe a Christian.
Besides, the churching a third charge will be
In butter'd haberdine and frumity.
Thus hoping you will make a courteous end,
I rest (I would thou wouldst) Your loving friend.

A.B.M.H.T.B.H.L.I.O.
I.F.M.G.P.W.

Nay I know
You have the same style all, and as for me
Such as your style is, shall your payment be.
Just all alike. See what a cursed spell
Charms devils up, to make my chamber hell.
This some starv'd prentice brings, one that does look
With a face blurr'd more than his master's book.
One that in any chink can peeping lie
More slender than the yard he measures by.
When my poor stomach barks for meat, I dare
Scarce humour it; they make me live by air,
As the chameleons do; and if none pay
Better than I have done, even so may they.
When I would go to chapel, they betray
My zeal, and when I only meant to pray
Unto my God, faith, all I have to do
Is to pray them, and glad they'll hear me too.
Nay, should I preach, the rascals are so vex'd,
They'd fee a beadle to arrest my text;
And sue (if such a suit might granted be)
My use and doctrine to an outlawry.
This stings; yet what my gall most works upon
Is that the hope of my revenge is gone.
For were I but to deal with such as those
That knew the danger of my verse or prose,
I'd steep my muse in vinegar and gall,
Till the fierce scold grew sharp, and hang'd 'um all.
But those I am to deal with are so dull
(Though got by scholars) he that is most full
Of understanding can but hither come
Imprimis, item, and the total sum.
I do not wish them Egypt's plagues, but even
As bad as they: I'd add unto them seven.
I wish not grasshoppers, frogs, and lice come down,
But clouds of moths in every shop i' th' town.
Then honest devil to their ink convey
Some aquafortis, that may eat away
Their books. To add more torments to their lives,
Heaven, I beseech thee, send 'um handsome wives.
Such as will pox their flesh, till sores grow in't,
That all their linen may be spent in lint.
And give them children with ingenuous faces,
Endued with all the ornaments and graces
Of soul and body, that it may be known
To others and themselves they're not their own.
And if this vex 'um not, I'll grieve the town
With this curse, States, put Trinity Lecture down.
But my last imprecation this shall be,
May they more debtors have, and all like me!





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