Verses to the Misses D-----ns

Mr Porden

The Author having been invited to breakfast with these ladies absurdly imagined that 10 o’clock would not be too early to see them; but unfortunately he was mistaken, and obliged to wait in a cold room by an ill-lighted smoky fire for near two hours, when quite impatient, he prevailed on the servant to disturb them with the following address

Ah! why should ladies formed to please
 With every charm of wit and beauty,
Seduced by listless love of ease
 Thus deviate from the path of duty;
And when yon sun, that shines so bright,
 Enlivens Earth and all brute natures
Obscure those brighter suns in night,
 Ordained t’enliven two-legg’d creatures.
Alas! that sun, perceives your crime
 And hides his head in clouds for sorrow
And will not, ‘till another time
 Be seen — perchance not till tomorrow.
Cruel! not such the dames of old —
 When days were long and nights much shorter
They rose with knights and barons bold,
 And breakfasted on beef and porter.
And ere the cock’s voice rouse the morn,
 On milk-white palfreys proudly riding
To chase the deer with hound and horn,
 Sprang forth their tardy lover’s chiding;
While you regardless of my pain
 Benumbed with cold, with hunger dying
Regardless of sagacious Jane
 And prattling Charles for pity crying
Forgetful too, that lazy maids
 Are self-condemned to wear the willow
You sleep and snore as if your heads
 Some witch had bound fast to your pillow.
Oh break, sweet girls, the bonds of sleep! —
 All blooming as I oft have seen you,
Descend — or to your couch I’ll creep
 And warm my frozen limbs between you.

Wag