Читать книгу Terrible Tractoration, and Other Poems онлайн

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And Hymen will amalgamate him.

Thus one Othello was, you know,

Black as the plumage of a crow,

And yet the white Miss Desdemona

Loved him as well as flies love honey.

The car of Venus, bards have sung,

Was drawn by doves, when I was young,

But then, were black birds substituted,

Ourself for one were better suited.

We’re rather darkish hued ourself,

Yet will annihilate the elf,

Who says in earnest, or in jokes

We’re not as good as whiter folks.

The only color of objection

To our said tawny predilection

Is this, ’t will ruin the machinery

Of amatory poets’ scenery.

Bright eyes, pink lips, and cheeks of roses,

Lily-complexions, Grecian noses,

Fine necks, and so forth, alabasters,

No more be themes for poetasters.

But then the Muse’s votary may

In rhymes like these his fair portray,—

My Phillis has a natural varnish

Which time nor accident can’t tarnish;

No sickly, pale, unripen’d maid,

“Dyed in the wool,” she cannot fade;

Essence of ebony and logwood,

And sweeter than the flowers of dogwood.