Thursday, March 02, 2006

Found While Looking for Something Else

I went searching last night for a verse of Dryden's that Dr Summers mentions in The Galanty Show and found the following instead. Piping isn't mentioned all that often in Restoration poetry but "anon" contributed this:

The Plaything Changed

Kitty's charming voice and face,
Syren-like, first caught my fancy;
Wit and humour next take place,
And now I doat on sprightly Nancy.

Kitty tunes her pipe in vain,
With airs most languishing and dying;
Calls me false ungrateful swain,
And tries in vain to shoot me flying.

Nancy with resistless art,
Always humorous, gay and witty,
Has talk'd herself into my heart,
And quite excluded tuneful Kitty.

Ah, Kitty! Love a wanton boy,
Now pleased with song, and now with prattle,
Still longing for the nearest toy
Has chang'd his whistle for a rattle.


"Kitty tunes her pipe in vain". Oh, yes, indeed. I've had reeds like that, too.

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