A Ramble in St James’s Park

	Much wine had passed with grave discourse
	Of who fucks who and who does worse,
	Such as you usually do hear
	From them that diet at the Bear,
5	When I, who still take care to see
	Drunkenness relieved by lechery,
	Went out into St James’s Park
	To cool my head and fire my heart.
	But though St James has the honour on’t,
10	’Tis consecrate to prick and cunt.
	There by a most incestuous birth
	Strange woods spring from the teeming earth,
	For they relate how heretofore,
	When ancient Pict began to whore,
15	Deluded of his assignation
	(Jilting it seems was then in fashion),
	Poor pensive lover in this place
	Would frig upon his mother’s face,
	Whence rows of mandrakes tall did rise
20	Whose lewd tops fucked the very skies.
	Each imitative branch does twine
	In some loved fold of Aretine.
	And nightly now beneath their shade
	Are buggeries, rapes, and incests made.
25	Unto this all-sin-sheltering grove
	Whores of the bulk and the alcove
	Great ladies, chambermaids, and drudges,
	The rag-picker and heiress trudges.
	Carmen, divines, great lords, and tailors,
30	’Prentices, pimps, poets, and jailers,
	Footmen, fine fops do here arrive,
	And here promiscuously they swive.
	Along these hallowed walks it was
	That I beheld Corinna pass.
35	Whoever had been by to see
	The proud disdain she cast on me
	Through charming eyes, he would have swore
	She dropped from heav’n that very hour,
	Forsaking the divine abode
40	In scorn of some despairing god.
	But mark what creatures women are,
	So infinitely vile, when fair.
	Three knights of th’elbow and the slur
	With wriggling tails made up to her.
45	The first was of your Whitehall blades,
	Near kin to th’Mother of the Maids,
	Graced by whose favour he was able
	To bring a friend to th’waiters’ table,
	Where he had heard Sir Edward Sutton
50	Say how the King loved Banstead mutton;
	Since when he’d ne’er be brought to eat
	By’s good will any other meat.
	In this, as well as all the rest,
	He ventures to do like the best,
55	But wanting common sense, th’ingredient
	In choosing well not least expedient,
	Converts abortive imitation
	To universal affectation.
	So he not only eats and talks,
60	But feels and smells, sits down and walks,
	Nay, looks and lives and loves by rote
	In an old tawdry birthday coat.
	The second was a Gray’s Inn wit,
	A great inhabiter of the pit,
65	Where critic-like he sits and squints,
	Steals pocket handkerchiefs and hints
	From’s neighbour and the comedy,
	To court and pay his landlady.
	The third, a lady’s eldest son
70	Within few years of twenty-one,
	Who hopes from his propitious fate
	Against he comes to his estate,
	By these two worthies to be made
	A most accomplished, tearing blade.
75	One in a strain ’twixt tune and nonsense
	Cries, ’Madam, I have loved you long since,
	Permit me your fair hand to kiss’;
	When at her mouth her cunt says, ’Yes’.
	In short, without much more ado,
80	Joyful and pleased away she flew
	And with these three confounded asses
	From park to hackney coach she passes;
	So a proud bitch does lead about
	Of humble curs the amorous rout,
85	Who most obsequiously do hunt
	The savory scent of salt-swol’n cunt.
	Some power more patient now relate
	The sense of this surprising fate,
	Gads! that a thing admired by me
90	Should fall to so much infamy.
	Had she picked out to rub her arse on
	Some stiff-pricked clown or well-hung parson,
	Each job of whose spermatic sluice
	Had filled her cunt with wholesome juice,
95	I the proceeding should have praised
	In hope she’d quenched a fire
	I raised. Such natural freedoms are but just:
	There’s something generous in mere lust.
	But to turn damned abandoned jade
100	When neither head nor tail persuade,
	To be a whore in understanding,
	A passive pot for fools to spend in –
	The devil played booty, sure, with thee
	To bring a blot on infamy.
105	But why am I of all mankind
	To so severe a fate designed?
	Ungrateful! why this treachery
	To humble, fond, believing me,
	Who gave you privileges above
110	The nice allowances of love?
	Did ever I refuse to bear
	The meanest part your lust could spare?
	When your lewd cunt came spewing home
	Drenched with the seed of half the town,
115	My dram of sperm was supped up after
	For the digestive surfeit water.
	Full gorged at another time
	With a vast meal of nasty slime
	Which your devouring cunt had drawn
120	From porters’ backs and footmen’s brawn,
	I was content to serve you up
	My ballock-full for your grace cup;
	Nor ever thought it an abuse,
	While you had pleasure for excuse.
125	You that could make my heart away
	For noise and colour and betray
	The secrets of my tender hours
	To such knight-errant paramours,
	When leaning on your faithless breast,
130	Wrapped in security and rest,
	Soft kindness all my powers did move,
	And reason lay dissolved in love.
	May stinking vapours choke your womb,
	Such as the men you dote upon.
135	May your depraved appetite,
	That could in whiffling fools delight,
	Beget such frenzies in your mind
	You may go mad for the north wind
	And fixing all your hopes upon’t
140	To have him bluster in your cunt
	Turn up your longing arse to th’air
	And perish in a wild despair.
	But cowards shall forget to rant,
	Schoolboys to frig, old whores to paint;
145	The Jesuits’ fraternity
	Shall leave the use of buggery;
	Crab-louse, inspired with grace divine,
	From earthly cod to heaven shall climb;
	Physicians shall believe in Jesus,
150	And disobedience cease to please us,
	Ere I desist with all my power
	To plague this woman and undo her.
	But my revenge will best be timed
	When she is married that is limed.
155	In that most lamentable state
	I’ll make her feel my scorn and hate,
	Pelt her with scandals, truth, or lies,
	And her poor cur with jealousies,
	Till I have torn him from her breech,
160	While she whines like a dog-drawn bitch,
	Loathed and despised, kicked out of town
	Into some dirty hole alone,
	To chew the cud of misery
	And know she owes it all to me.
165	And may no woman better thrive
	Who dares profane the cunt I swive.