Choyce Drollery: Songs and Sonnets: Being a Collection of Divers Excellent Pieces of Poetry, of Several Eminent Authors.
History
Choyce Drollery: Songs and Sonnets: Being a Collection of Divers Excellent Pieces of Poetry, of Several Eminent Authors.
English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700; English wit and humor; Songs, English -- Texts
There’s Venison of all sorts great store,
Both Stag, and buck, wild Goat, and Boar,
And all so tame, that you with ease
May take your fill, eat what you please;
There’s Beavers plenty, yea, so many,
That you may buy two skins a penny,
Above all this, a Church most pure,
Where to be saved you may be sure.
There’s flight of Fowl do cloud the skie,
Great Turkies of threescore pound weight,
As big as Estriges, there Geese, [p. 104.]
With thanks, are sold for pence a piece;
Of Duck and Mallard, Widgeon, Teale,
Twenty for two-pence make a meale;
Yea, and a Church unspotted pure,
Within whose bosome all are sure.
Loe, there in shoals all sorts of fish,
Of the salt seas, and water fresh:
Ling, Cod, Poor-John, and Haberdine,
Are taken with the Rod and Line;
A painful fisher on the shore
May take at least twenty an houre;
Besides all this a Church most pure,
Where you may live and dye secure.
There twice a year all sorts of Grain
Doth down from heaven, like hailstones, rain;
You ne’r shall need to sow nor plough,
There’s plenty of all things enough:
Wine sweet and wholsome drops from trees,
As clear as chrystal, without lees;
Yea, and a Church unspotted, pure,
From dregs of Papistry secure.
No Feasts nor festival set daies
Are here observed, the Lord be prais’d,
Though not in Churches rich and strong,
Yet where no Mass was ever Sung,
The Bulls of _Bashan_ ne’r met there[;]
_Surplice_ and _Cope_ durst not appear;
Old Orders all they will abjure,
This Church hath all things new and pure.
No discipline shall there be used, [p. 105.]
The Law of Nature they have chused[;]
All that the spirit seems to move
Each man may choose and so approve,
There’s Government without command,
There’s unity without a band;
A Synagogue unspotted pure,
Where lust and pleasure dwells secure.
Loe in this Church all shall be free
To Enjoy their Christian liberty;
All things made common, void of strife,
Each man may take anothers wife,
And keep a hundred maids, if need,
To multiply, increase, and breed,
Then is not this Foundation sure,
To build a Church unspotted, pure?
The native People, though yet wild,
Are altogether kind and mild,
And apt already, by report,
To live in this religious sort;
Soon to conversion they’l be brought
When _Warrens Mariery_ have wrought,
Who being sanctified and pure,
May by the Spirit them alure.
Let _Amsterdam_ send forth her Brats,
Her Fugitives and Runnagates:
Let Bedlam, Newgate, and the Clink
Disgorge themselves into this sink;
Let Bridewell and the stews be kept,
And all sent thither to be swept;
So may our Church be cleans’d and pure,
Keep both it self and state secure.
[p. 106.]
_The insatiate Lover._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account