[Page 200]

The DECISION.

BALLAD III.

I.
1 MY Florio, wildest of his sex,
2 (Who sure the veriest saint wou'd vex)
3 From beauty roves to beauty;
4 Yet, tho' abroad the wanton roam,
5 Whene'er he deigns to stay at home,
6 He always minds his duty.
II.
7 Something to every charming she,
8 In thoughtless prodigality,
9 He's granting still and granting,
10 To Phyllis that, to Cloe this,
11 And every madam, every miss;
12 Yet I find nothing wanting.
III.
13 If haply I his will displease,
14 Tempestuous as th' autumnal seas
15 He foams and rages ever;
[Page 201]
16 But when he ceases from his ire,
17 I cry, such spirit, and such fire,
18 Is surely wond'rous clever.
IV.
19 I ne'er want reason to complain;
20 But sweet is pleasure after pain,
21 And every joy grows greater.
22 Then trust me, damsels, whilst I tell,
23 I should not like him half so well,
24 If I cou'd make him better.

Text

  • TEI/XML [chunk] (XML - 45K / ZIP - 5.4K) / ECPA schema (RNC - 357K / ZIP - 73K)
  • Plain text [excluding paratexts] (TXT - 837 / ZIP - 666 )

Facsimile (Source Edition)

(Page images digitized from microfilm of a copy in the Bodleian Library [2799 d 134].)

Images

PDF

All Images (PDF - 313K)

About this text

Title (in Source Edition): The DECISION. BALLAD III.
Themes: relations between the sexes
Genres: ballad metre

Text view / Document view

Source edition

Smart, Christopher, 1722-1771. Poems on several occasions: By Christopher Smart, A. M. Fellow of Pembroke-Hall, Cambridge. London: printed for the author, by W. Strahan; and sold by J. Newbery, at the Bible and Sun, in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, MDCCLII., 1752, pp. 200-201. [16],230p.,plates; 4⁰. (ESTC T42626; OTA K041581.000) (Page images digitized from microfilm of a copy in the Bodleian Library [2799 d 134].)

Editorial principles

The text has been typographically modernized, but without any silent modernization of spelling, capitalization, or punctuation. The source of the text is given and all editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. Based on the electronic text originally produced by the TCP project, this ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.

Other works by Christopher Smart