[Gail White]

Since the "Bawdy Verse" topic has disappeared, the only way I can get my question answered is to post a new topic.

I have found readers of this forum very helpful at supplying poems for me if I can give them a hint. In this case, I am looking for a poem of which I can remember neither the title nor the author. All I remember are the following 2 verses:

The lingam and the yoni
go walking hand in glove.
O are you listening, honey?
I hear my honey-love.

The he and she our movers,
what is it they discuss?
They walk and talk for hours,
and do they think of us?

First person to provide the complete poem will receive
$1000, provided he wins the lottery on the same day.

Thanks--

[hector]

It's in A.D.Hope's Collected Poems. A very good site for qutation hunting is www.poetrylibrary.org.uk . Go to Lost Quotations.

[Gail White]

Thanks to hector for valuable information!

So, now let's broaden the subject to 17th century erotic poetry. Besides the frankly obscene poets like Rochester, there were many who handled erotic matters more delicately.

This is one of my favorites, by Sir Charles Sedley:

YOUNG CORIDON AND PHILLIS

Young Coridon and Phillis
Sat in a lovely grove,
Contriving crowns of lilies,
Repeating tales of love:
And something else, but what I dare not name.

But as they were a playing,
She ogled so the swain,
It saved her plainly saying,
Let's kiss to ease our pain,
And something else, but what I dare not name.

A thousand times he kissed her,
Laying her on the green,
But as he farther pressed her,
Her pretty leg was seen:
And something else, but what I dare not name.

So many Beauties moving,
His ardor still increased,
And greater joys pursuing,
He wandered o'er her Breast:
And something else, but what I dare not name.

A last effort she trying
His passion to withstand,
Cried - but 'twas faintly crying -
Pray take away your hand:
And something else, but what I dare not name.

Young Coridon grown bolder,
The minute would improve.
This is the time, he told her,
To show you how I love:
And something else, but what I dare not name.

The nymph seemed almost dying,
Dissolved in amorous heat;
She kissed and told him sighing,
My dear, your love is great:
And something else, but what I dare not name.

But Phillis did recover
Much sooner than her swain.
She blushing asked her lover,
Shall we not kiss again?
And something else, but what I dare not name.

Thus Love his revels keeping,
Till Nature at a stand,
From talk they fell to sleeping,
Holding each other's hand:
And something else, but what I dare not name.

[Tim Murphy]

Hector, Great sleuthing. I know Hope pretty well, and I was thinking Why can't I name this? Gail, the Sedley is an utter delight. It is sad that we dare not speak his name.

[hector]

I'll add Sedley to my reading list: in the Elizabethans there is Thomas Nashe's A Choice of Valentines, which is more pornographic, but has the same comic sense and characterisation as The Unfortunate Traveller and Summer's Last Will and Testament. It's on the net, but every time I try to enter the site it goes wrong.

[Jan D. Hodge]

Gail, I'm surprised you haven't had more responses to your call for 17th century erotica. I'd suggest adding Aphra Behn to your list. Among many other poems and songs from her plays, she "translated" one of Horace's odes, reversing the sex roles, in "In Imitation of Horace," and celebrates female amorousness in this song from her play The Dutch Lover:

....The Willing Mistress

Amyntas led me to a grove,
Where all the trees did shade us;
The sun itself, though it had strove,
It could not have betrayed us.
The place secured from human eyes
No other fear allows
But when the winds that gently rise
Do kiss the yielding boughs.

Down there we sat upon the moss,
And did begin to play
A thousand amorous tricks, to pass
The heat of all the day.
A many kisses did he give
And I returned the same,
Which made me willing to receive
That which I dare not name.

His charming eyes no aid required
To tell their softening tale;
On her that was already fired,
'Twas easy to prevail.
He did but kiss and clasp me round,
Whilst those his thougts expressed;
And laid me gently on the grund;
Ah who can guess the rest?


But my favorite is "The Disappointment," much too long [140 lines] to type entire, but here are a few stanzas:

He saw how at her length she lay;
He saw her rising bosom bare;
Her loose thin robes, through which appear
A shape designed for love and play;
Abandoned by her pride and shame
She does her softest joys dispense,
Offering her virgin innocence......................... [?!]
A victim to love's sacred flame;
While the o'er-ravished shepherd lies
Unable to perform the sacrifice.

Ready to taste a thousand joys,
The too transported hapless swain
Found the vast pleasure turned to pain;
Pleasure which too much love destroys:
The willing garments by he laid,
And heaven all opened to his view.
Mad to possess, himself he threw
On the defenseless lovely maid.
But oh what envying god conspires
To snatch his power, yet leave him the desire!

Nature's support (without whose aid
She can no human being give)
Itself now wants the art to live;
Faintness its slackened nerves invade:
In vain th'enraged youth essayed
To call its fleeting vigor back;
No motion 'twill from motion take;
Excess of love his love betrayed:
In vain he toils, in vain commands:
The insensible fell weeping in his hand.

In this so amorus cruel strife,
Where love and fate were too severe,
The poor Lysander in despair
Renounced his reason with his life:
Now all the brisk and active fire
That should the nobler part inflame
Served to increase his rage and shame,
And left no spark for new desire:
Not all her naked charms could move
Or calm that rage that had debauched his love.

Cloris returning from the trance
Which love and soft desire had bred,
Her timorous hand she gently laid
(Or guided by design or chance)
Upon that fabled Priapus,
That potent god, as poets feign:
But never did young shepherdess,
Gathering the fern upon the plain,
More nimbly draw her fingers back,
Finding beneath the verdant leaves a snake,

Than Cloris her fair hand withdrew,
Finding that god of her desires
Disarmed of all his awful fires,
And cold as flowers bathed in morning dew.
Who can the nymph's confusion guess?
The blood forsook the hinder place,
And strewed with blushes all her face,
Which both disdain and shame expessed:
And from Lysander's arms she fled,
Leaving him fainting on the gloomy bed. . . .

.

The nymph's resentments none but I
Can well imagine or condole:
But none can guess Lysander's soul,
But those who swayed his destiny.
His silent griefs swell up to storms,
And not one god his fury spares;
He cursed his birth, his fate, his stars;
But more te shepherdess's charms,
Whose soft bewitchin influenece
Had damned him to the hell of impotence.

...................................[ll. 61-120, 131-40]

Cheers,
Jan

[ewrgall]

I dont know if anyone has mentioned him but Thomas Nash (Nashe) wrote "the choise of valentines or the merie ballad of Nash his dildo". Well worth the reading.

ewrgall

[hector]

Earlier still are John Gower, (the Confessio Amantis goes on a bit has some fine bits,especially Pygmalion and Galatea) and William Dunbar (best known for London thou art flouer of cities all and the Lament for the Makaris). An interesting thing about Dunbar was that at a time (1932)when "fuck" couldn't be representaed in English even by "f---", it could be printed, as long as it had two "k"s and was in the obscurity of a learned language!