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Matthew Prior - An Epistle To Fleetwood Shephard, Esq.
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When crowding folks, with strange ill faces,
Were making legs, and begging places,
And some with patents, some with merit, 
Tired out my good Lord Dorset`s spirit:
Sneaking I stood amongst the crew,
Desiring much to speak with you.
I waited while the clock struck thrice,
And footman brought out fifty lies;
Till, patience vex`d, and legs grown weary,
I thought it was in vain to tarry!
But did opine it might be better,
By penny-post to send a letter;
Now, if you miss of this epistle,
I`m baulk`d again, and may go whistle.
My business, Sir, you`ll quickly guess, 
Is to desire some little place;
And fair pretensions I have for`t, 
Much need, and very small desert.
Whene`er I writ to you, I wanted;
I always begg`d, you always granted.
Now, as you took me up when little, 
Gave me my learning and my vittle;
Ask`d for me, from my lord, things fitting,
Kind as I`d been your own begetting;
Confirm what formerly you`ve given,
Nor leave me now at six and seven,
As Sunderland has left Mun Stephen.
       No family, that takes a whelp
When first he laps, and scarce can yelp,
Neglects or turns him out of gate
When he`s grown up to dog`s estate:
No parish, if they once adopt
The spurious brats by strollers dropp`d,
Leave them, when grown up lusty fellows,
To, the wide world, that is, the gallows:
No thank them for their love, that`s worse,
Than if they`d throttled them at nurse.
       My uncle, rest his soul! when living,
Might have contrived me ways of thriving;
Taught me with cyder to replenish
My vats, or ebbing tide of Rhenish.
So when for hock I drew prickt white-wine,
Swear`t had the flavour, and was right wine.
Or sent me with ten pounds to Furni-
val`s Inn, to some good rogue attorney;
Where now, by forging deeds, and cheating,
I`d found some handsome ways of getting.
       All this you made me quit, to follow 
That sneaking whey-faced god Apollo;
Sent me among a fiddling crew
Of folks, I`d never seen nor knew,
Calliope, and God knows who,
To add no more invectives to i,
You spoil`d the youth, to make a poet.
In common justice, Sir, there`s no man
That makes the whore, but keeps the woman.
Amongst all honest Christian people,
Whoe`er breaks limbs, maintains the cripple.
       The sum of all I have to say,
Is, that you`ll put me in some way;
And your petitioner shall pray--
There`s one thing more I had almost slipt,
But that may do as well in postscript:
My friend Charles Montague`s preferr`d;
Nor would I have it long observed,
That one mouse eats, while t`other starved.
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