The Mock Song

BY JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER

I swive as well as others do, 

I’m young, not yet deformed, 

My tender heart, sincere, and true, 

Deserves not to be scorned. 

Why Phyllis then, why will you swive, 

With forty lovers more? 

Can I (said she) with Nature strive, 

Alas I am, alas I am a whore. 

Were all my body larded o’er, 

With darts of love, so thick, 

That you might find in ev’ry pore, 

A well stuck standing prick; 

Whilst yet my eyes alone were free, 

My heart, would never doubt, 

In am’rous rage, and ecstasy, 

To wish those eyes, to wish those eyes fucked out.

John Wilmot (1 April 1647 – 26 July 1680) was an English poet and courtier of King Charles II's Restoration court. The Restoration reacted against the "spiritual authoritarianism" of the Puritan era. Rochester was the embodiment of the new era, and he is as well known for his rakish lifestyle as his poetry, although the two were often interlinked. He died at the age of 33 from venereal disease.