By poets we are well assured That love, alas! can ne'er be cured; A complicated heap of ills, Despising boluses and pills. Ah! Chloe, this I find is true, Since first I gave my heart to you. Now, by your cruelty hard bound, I strain my guts, my colon wound. Now jealousy my grumbling tripes Assaults with grating, grinding gripes. When pity in those eyes I view, My bowels wambling make me spew. When I an amorous kiss design'd, I belch'd a hurricane of wind. Once you a gentle sigh let fall; Remember how I suck'd it all; What colic pangs from thence I felt, Had you but known, your heart would melt, Like ruffling winds in cavern pent, Till Nature pointed out a vent. How have you torn my heart to pieces With maggots, humours, and caprices! By which I got the hemorrhoids; And loathsome worms my _anus_ voids. Whene'er I hear a rival named, I feel my body all inflamed; Which, breaking out in boils and blains, With yellow filth my linen stains; Or, parch'd with unextinguish'd thirst, Small-beer I guzzle till I burst; And then I drag a bloated _corpus_, Swell'd with a dropsy, like a porpus; When, if I cannot purge or stale, I must be tapp'd to fill a pail. [Footnote 1: The Dean of St. Paul's, father to the Bishop.--_H._] BOUTS RIMEZ[1] ON SIGNORA DOMITILLA Our schoolmaster may roar i' th' fit, Of classic beauty, _haec et illa_; Not all his birch inspires such wit As th'ogling beams of Domitilla. Let nobles toast, in bright champaign, Nymphs higher born than Domitilla; I'll drink her health, again, again, In Berkeley's tar,[2] or sars'parilla. At Goodman's Fields I've much admired The postures strange of Monsieur Brilla; But what are they to the soft step, The gliding air of Domitilla? Virgil has eternized in song The flying footsteps of Camilla;[3] Sure, as a prophet, he was wrong; He might have dream'd of Domitilla. Great Theodose condemn'd a town For thinking ill of his Placilla:[4] And deuce take London! if some knight O' th' city wed not Domitilla. Wheeler,[5] Sir George, in travels wise, Gives us a medal of Plantilla; But O! the empress has not eyes, Nor lips, nor breast, like Domitilla. Not all the wealth of plunder'd Italy, Piled on the mules of king At-tila, Is worth one glove (I'll not tell a bit a lie) Or garter, snatch'd from Domitilla. Five years a nymph at certain hamlet, Y-cleped Harrow of the Hill, a- --bused much my heart, and was a damn'd let To verse--but now for Domitilla. Dan Pope consigns Belinda's watch To the fair sylphid Momentilla,[6] And thus I offer up my catch To the snow-white hands of Domitilla. [Footnote 1: Verses to be made upon a given name or word, at the end of a line, and to which rhymes must be found.--_W. E. B._]