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Back to Samuel Wesley
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Alright. Try not to get over-excited, but here are the highlights from Maggots, Samuel Wesley's 1685 masterpiece. A seminal work in the history of pointless, talentless and frequently tasteless poetry, I have reproduced here some 9 poems from the complete collection. These are the real gems - the rest of the verse, though undeniably atrocious, is not to be recommended.
A Pindarique on the Grunting of a Hog
A moving tribute to one of nature's best-loved songsters: the pig.
On A Supper of a Stinking Ducks
One of the most repulsive subjects for poetry ever.
The Bear Fac'd Lady
A tender understanding of disability... or not.
On two Souldiers killing one another for a Groat
Watch out for the terrible rhymes in the first few lines.
On a Discourteous Damsel that call'd the Right Worshipful Author-(an't please ye!) Sawcy Puppy
One of the most vituperative, gloriously abusive attacks in poetry. And to think this man was the father of John Wesley...
To my Gingerbread Mistress
Not, perhaps one of his more accessible works, but it does begin with the memroable lines: Dear Miss, not with a Lie to cheat ye,/ I love you so that I could eat ye.
On a Maggot
Packed with classical allusion, and notable for the lines 'Twas I brought down that Rampant Gypsie,/Whose Love and Pearls made Tony tipsie:' which is surely the first time that Mark Anthony and Cleopatra have been referred to as 'Tony' and his 'rampant gypsie.'
A Dialogue, Between Chamber-pot and Frying Pan
What a charming poem this is...
A Pindaric Poem On Three Skipps of a Louse.
Well, we've had maggots, now for fleas...
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