FullReads

Air-“Come live with me and be my love.”

Come wed with me and we will write,
My Blue of Blues, from morn till night.
Chased from our classic souls shall be
All thoughts of vulgar progeny;
And thou shalt walk through smiling rows
Of chubby duodecimos,
While I, to match thy products nearly,
Shall lie-in of a quarto yearly.
‘Tis true, even books entail some trouble;
But live productions give one double.

Correcting children is such bother,–
While printers’ devils correct the other.
Just think, my own Malthusian dear,
How much more decent ’tis to hear
From male or female–as it may be–
“How is your book?” than “How’s your baby?”
And whereas physic and wet nurses
Do much exhaust paternal purses,
Our books if rickety may go
And be well dry-nurst in the Row;
And when God wills to take them hence,
Are buried at the Row’s expense.

Besides, (as ’tis well proved by thee,
In thy own Works, vol. 93.)
The march, just now, of population
So much outscrips all moderation,
That even prolific herring-shoals
Keep pace not with our erring souls.[1]
Oh far more proper and well-bred
To stick to writing books instead;
And show the world how two Blue lovers
Can coalesce, like two book-covers,
(Sheep-skin, or calf, or such wise leather,)
Lettered at back and stitched together
Fondly as first the binder fixt ’em,
With naught but–literature betwixt ’em.

NOTE:
[1] See “Ella of Garveloch.”–Garveloch being a place where there was a large herring-fishery, but where, as we are told by the author, “the people increased much faster than the produce.”