Puritans - (from Hudibras)

Our brethren of New England use
Choice malefactors to excuse,
And hang the guiltless in their stead,
Of whom the churches have less need;
As late it happened in a town
Where lived a cobbler, and but one,
That out of doctrine could cut use,
And mend men's lives as well as shoes.
This precious brother having slain
In times of peace an Indian,
Not out of malice, but mere zeal,
Because he was an infidel;
The mighty Tottipotimoy
Complaining loudly of the breach
Of league held forth by brother Patch,
Against the articles in force
Between both churches, his and ours;
For which he craved the saints to render
Into his hands, or hang the offender.
But they maturely having weighed

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poem by Samuel Butler
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Sonnets On Miss Savage

i
She was too kind, wooed too persistently,
Wrote moving letters to me day by day;
The more she wrote, the more unmoved was I,
The more she gave, the less could I repay.
Therefore I grieve, not that I was not loved,
But that, being loved, I could not love again.
I liked, but like and love are far removed;
Hard though I tried to love I tried in vain.
For she was plain and lame and fat and short,
Forty and over-kind. Hence it befell
That though I loved her in a certain sort,
Yet did I love too wisely but not well.
Ah! had she been more beauteous or less kind
She might have found me of another mind.

ii

And now, though twenty years are come and gone,
That little lame lady's face is with me still;

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poem by Samuel Butler
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The Metaphysical Sectarian

HE was in Logick a great Critick,
Profoundly skill'd in Analytick.
He could distinguish, and divide
A Hair 'twixt South and South-West side:
On either which he would dispute,
Confute, change hands, and still confute.
He'd undertake to prove by force
Of Argument, a Man's no Horse.
He'd prove a Buzard is no Fowl,
And that a Lord may be an Owl;
A Calf an Alderman, a Goose a Justice,
And Rooks Committee-men and Trustees.
He'd run in Debt by Disputation,
And pay with Ratiocination.
All this by Syllogism, true
In Mood and Figure, he would do.

For Rhetorick, he could not ope
His mouth, but out there flew a Trope:
And when he hapned to break off

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poem by Samuel Butler
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Hudibras, Part I (excerpts)

THE ARGUMENT OF THE FIRST CANTOSir Hudibras his passing worth,
The manner how he sallied forth;
His arms and equipage are shown;
His horse's virtues, and his own.
Th' adventure of the bear and fiddle
Is sung, but breaks off in the middle.
When civil fury first grew high,
And men fell out, they knew not why;
When hard words, jealousies, and fears,
Set folks together by the ears,
And made them fight, like mad or drunk,
For Dame Religion, as for punk;
Whose honesty they all durst swear for,
Though not a man of them knew wherefore:
When Gospel-Trumpeter, surrounded
With long-ear'd rout, to battle sounded,
And pulpit, drum ecclesiastic,
Was beat with fist, instead of a stick;
Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling,
And out he rode a colonelling.

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poem by Samuel Butler
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An Heroic Epistle of Hudibras To His Lady

I who was once as great as Caesar,
Am now reduc'd to Nebuchadnezzar;
And from as fam'd a conqueror
As ever took degree in war,
Or did his exercise in battle,
By you turn'd out to grass with cattle:
For since I am deny'd access
To all my earthly happiness
Am fallen from the paradise
Of your good graces, and fair eyes;
Lost to the world, and you, I'm sent
To everlasting banishment;
Where all the hopes I had t' have won
Your heart, b'ing dash'd, will break my own.

Yet if you were not so severe
To pass your doom before you hear,
You'd find, upon my just defence,
How much y' have wrong'd my innocence.
That once I made a vow to you,

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poem by Samuel Butler
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Hudibras - The Lady's Answer to The Knight

That you're a beast, and turn'd to grass,
Is no strange news, nor ever was;
At least to me, who once you know,
Did from the pound replevin you,
When both your sword and spurs were won
In combat by an Amazon.
That sword, that did (like Fate) determine
Th' inevitable death of vermine,
And never dealt its furious blows,
But cut the throats of pigs and cows,
By TRULLA was, in single fight,
Disarm'd and wrested from its knight;
Your heels degraded of your spurs,
And in the stocks close prisoners;
Where still they'd lain, in base restraint,
If I, in pity of your complaint,
Had not on honourable conditions,
Releast 'em from the worst of prisons
And what return that favour met
You cannot (though you wou'd) forget;

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poem by Samuel Butler
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Hudibras: Part 3 - Canto III

THE ARGUMENT

The Knight and squire's prodigious Flight
To quit th' inchanted Bow'r by Night.
He plods to turn his amorous Suit
T' a Plea in Law, and prosecute
Repairs to Counsel, to advise
'Bout managing the Enterprise;
But first resolves to try by Letter,
And one more fair Address, to get her.

WHO wou'd believe what strange bugbears
Mankind creates itself of fears
That spring like fern, that insect weed,
Equivocally, without seed;
And have no possible foundation,
But merely in th' imagination;
And yet can do more dreadful feats
Than hags, with all their imps and teats
Make more bewitch and haunt themselves

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poem by Samuel Butler
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Hudibras: Part 2 - Canto II

THE ARGUMENT

The Knight and Squire, in hot dispute,
Within an ace of falling out,
Are parted with a sudden fright
Of strange alarm, and stranger sight;
With which adventuring to stickle,
They're sent away in nasty pickle.

'Tis strange how some mens' tempers suit
(Like bawd and brandy) with dispute,
That for their own opinions stand last
Only to have them claw'd and canvast;
That keep their consciences in cases,
As fiddlers do their crowds and bases,
Ne'er to be us'd, but when they're bent
To play a fit for argument;
Make true and false, unjust and just,
Of no use but to be discust;
Dispute, and set a paradox

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poem by Samuel Butler
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Hudibras: Part 1 - Canto I

THE ARGUMENT

Sir Hudibras his passing worth,
The manner how he sallied forth;
His arms and equipage are shown;
His horse's virtues, and his own.
Th' adventure of the bear and fiddle
Is sung, but breaks off in the middle.

When civil dudgeon a first grew high,
And men fell out they knew not why?
When hard words, jealousies, and fears,
Set folks together by the ears,
And made them fight, like mad or drunk,
For Dame Religion, as for punk;
Whose honesty they all durst swear for,
Though not a man of them knew wherefore:
When Gospel-Trumpeter, surrounded
With long-ear'd rout, to battle sounded,

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poem by Samuel Butler
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Hudibras: Part 2 - Canto I

THE ARGUMENT

The Knight by damnable Magician,
Being cast illegally in prison,
Love brings his Action on the Case.
And lays it upon Hudibras.
How he receives the Lady's Visit,
And cunningly solicits his Suite,
Which she defers; yet on Parole
Redeems him from th' inchanted Hole.

But now, t'observe a romantic method,
Let bloody steel a while be sheathed,
And all those harsh and rugged sounds
Of bastinadoes, cuts, and wounds,
Exchang'd to Love's more gentle stile,
To let our reader breathe a while;
In which, that we may be as brief as
Is possible, by way of preface,
Is't not enough to make one strange,

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poem by Samuel Butler
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