Page:Fugitive Poetry 1600-1878.djvu/521
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The Humble Petition of the Letter W to the Inhabitants of London.
Whereas by you I have been hurled
From the first station in the world,
Condemned in vice to find a place,
And with the vulgar show my face;
I humbly ask to be restored,
In all that's proper, to a word.
But what I most complain of now,
Is that the women cut me so;
When any girl becomes a wife,
I'm turned away for all her life—
And even in her widowhood
I mayn't return to her abode.
Therefore with reason I complain,
Oh! let me not be heard in vain;
And born within the sound of Bow,
I trust I'm not your care below.
From the first station in the world,
Condemned in vice to find a place,
And with the vulgar show my face;
I humbly ask to be restored,
In all that's proper, to a word.
But what I most complain of now,
Is that the women cut me so;
When any girl becomes a wife,
I'm turned away for all her life—
And even in her widowhood
I mayn't return to her abode.
Therefore with reason I complain,
Oh! let me not be heard in vain;
And born within the sound of Bow,
I trust I'm not your care below.
Answer.
Your prayer is graciously received,
But you can never be believed;
With v's you often spell your name—
Then is it just your dupes to blame?
As long as you act parts so double,
TVe cannot deem you worth our trouble;
But rest assured that nought will hurt you,
As long as you remain in virtue.
But you can never be believed;
With v's you often spell your name—
Then is it just your dupes to blame?
As long as you act parts so double,
TVe cannot deem you worth our trouble;
But rest assured that nought will hurt you,
As long as you remain in virtue.
A Grecian Fable.
Once on a time, a son and sire, we're told,—
The stripling tender and the father old,—
Purchased a donkey at a country fair,
To ease their limbs, and hawk about their ware;
But as the sluggish animal was weak,
They feared if both should mount, his back would break.
Up got the boy, the father plods on foot,
And through the gazing crowd he leads the brute;
Forth from the crowd the greybeards hobble out, '
And hail the cavalcade with feeble shout:
"This is the respect to feeble age you show?
And this the duty you to parents owe?
The stripling tender and the father old,—
Purchased a donkey at a country fair,
To ease their limbs, and hawk about their ware;
But as the sluggish animal was weak,
They feared if both should mount, his back would break.
Up got the boy, the father plods on foot,
And through the gazing crowd he leads the brute;
Forth from the crowd the greybeards hobble out, '
And hail the cavalcade with feeble shout:
"This is the respect to feeble age you show?
And this the duty you to parents owe?