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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=420390" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Shepherd's Week : Wednesday; or, The Dumps</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sparabella.<br>The wailings of a maiden I recite,<br>A maiden fair, that Sparabella hight.<br>Such strains ne'er warble in the linnet's throat,<br>Nor the gay goldfinch chants so sweet a note,<br>No magpie chatter'd, nor the painted jay,<br>No ox was heard to low, nor ass to bray.<br>No rustling breezes play'd the leaves among,<br>While thus her madrigal the damsel sung.<br>A while, O D'Urfey, lend an ear or twain,<br>Nor, though in homely guise, my verse disdain:<br>Whether thou seek'st new kingdoms in the sun,<br>Whether thy muse does at Newmarket run,<br>Or does with gossips at a feast regale,<br>And heighten her conceits with sack and ale,<br>Or else at wakes with Joan and Hodge rejoice,<br>Where D'Urfey's lyrics swell in every voice;<br>Yet suffer me, thou bard of wondrous meed,<br>Amid thy bays to weave this rural weed.<br>Now the sun drove adown the western road,<br>And oxen laid at rest forget the goad,<br>The clown fatigu'd trudg'd homeward with his spade,<br>Across the meadows stretch'd the lengthen'd shade:<br>When Sparabella, pensive and forlorn,<br>Alike with yearning love and labour worn, <br>Lean'd on her rake, and straight with doleful guise<br>Did this said plaint in moanful notes devise.<br>Come night as dark as pitch, surround my head,<br>From Sparabella Bumkinet is fled;<br>The ribbon that his valorous cudgel won,<br>Last Sunday happier Clumsillis put on, <br>Sure if he'd eyes, (but love, they say, has none)<br>I whilom by that ribbon had been known.<br>Ah, well-a-day! I'm shent with baneful aid,<br>'Tis hard so true a damsel dies a maid.'<br>Shall heavy Clumsillis with me compare?<br>View this, ye lovers, and like me despair.<br>Her blubber'd lip by smutty pipes is worn,<br>And in her breath tobacco whiffs are born;<br>The cleanly cheese-press she could never turn,<br>Her awkward fist did ne'er employ the churn;<br>If e'er she brew'd, the drink would straight go sour,<br>Before it ever felt the thunder's power:<br>No huswifry the dowdy creature knew,<br>To sum up all, her tongue confess'd the shrew.<br>'My plaint, ye lasses, with this burthen aid,<br>'Tis hard so true a damsel dies a maid.'<br>I've often seen my visage in yon lake,<br>Nor are my features of the homeliest make.<br>Though Clumsillis may boast a whiter dye,<br>Yet the black sloe turns in my rolling eye;<br>And fairest blossoms drop with every blast,<br>But the brown beauty will like the hollies last.<br>Her wan complexion's like the wither'd leek,<br>While Catherine pears adorn my ruddy cheek.<br>Yet she, alas! the witless lout hath won,<br>And by her gain poor Sparabella's undone!<br>Let hares and hounds in coupling straps unite,<br>The clocking hen make friendship with the kite,<br>Let the fox simply wear the nuptial noose,<br>And join in wedlock with the wadling goose;<br>For love hath brought a stranger thing to pass,<br>The fairest shepherd weds the foulest lass.<br>'My plaint, ye lasses, with this burthen aid,<br>'Tis hard so true a damsel dies a maid.'<br>Ah! didst thou know what proffers I withstood,<br>When late I met the squire in yonder wood!<br>To me he sped, regardless of his game,<br>While all my cheek was glowing red with shame;<br>My lip he kiss'd, and prais'd my healthful look,<br>Then from his purse of silk a guinea took,<br>Into my hand he forc'd the tempting gold,<br>While I with modest struggling broke his hold. <br>He swore that Dick in livery stripp'd with lace,<br>Should wed me soon, to keep me from disgrace;<br>But I nor footman priz'd, nor golden fee,<br>For what is lace or gold compar'd to thee?<br>'My plaint, ye lasses, with this burthen aid,<br>'Tis hard so true a damsel dies a maid.'<br>Now plain I ken whence love his rise begun, <br>Sure he was born some bloody butcher's son,<br>Bred up in shambles where our younglings slain,<br>Erst taught him mischief and to sport with pain.<br>The father only silly sheep annoys,<br>The son the sillier shepherdess destroys.<br>Does son or father greater mischief do?<br>The sire is cruel, so the son is too. <br>'My plaint, ye lasses, with this burthen aid,<br>'Tis hard so true a damsel dies a maid.'<br>Farewell, ye woods, ye meads, ye streams that flow:<br>A sudden death shall rid me of my woe.<br>This penknife keen my windpipe shall divide,.<br>What, shall I fall as squeaking pigs have died!<br>No - to some tree this carcase I'll suspend.<br>But worrying curs find such untimely end!<br>I'll speed me to the pond, where the high stool<br>On the long plank hangs o'er the muddy pool,<br>That stool, the dread of every scolding quean, <br>Yet, sure a lover should not die so mean!<br>There plac'd aloft, I'll rave and rail by fits,<br>Though all the parish say I've lost my wits;<br>And thence, if courage holds, myself I'll throw,<br>And quench my passion in the lake below.<br>'Ye lasses, cease your burthen, cease to moan,<br>And, by my case forewarn'd, go mind your own.'<br>The sun was set; the night came on apace,<br>And falling dews bewet around the place,<br>The bat takes airy rounds on leathern wings,<br>And the hoarse owl his woful dirges sings;<br>The prudent maiden deems it now too late,<br>And till to-morrow comes defers her fate.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=John+Gay">John Gay</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=420390" data-title="The Shepherd's Week : Wednesday; or, The Dumps de John Gay" data-description="Sparabella.
The wailings of a maiden I recite,
A maiden fair, that Sparabella hight.
Such strains ne'er warble in the linnet's throat,
Nor the gay goldfinch chants so sweet a note,
No magpie chatter'd, nor the painted jay,
No ox was heard to low, ..."></div>
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