100%

Madam if you please

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Madam if you please (1726)
by Christopher Smart
426340Madam if you please1726Christopher Smart


Madam if you please


Madam if you please
To hear such things as these.
Madam, I have a rival sad,
And if you don’t take my part it will made me mad.
5 He says he well send his son;
But if he does I will get me a gun.
Madam if you please to pity,
O poor Kitty, O poor Kitty!


c. 1726


Notes

  1. Composed by Smart in c.1726 when he was 4 years old, as explained in the letter of Smart’s daughter Elizabeth Le Noir to E. H. Barker, c. 1825: “His eldest sister Margaret… has often repeated to me his first essay at numbers when about… 4 years old. The young rhymester was very fond of a lady of about three times his own age who used to notice and caress him. A gentleman old enough to be her father to teaze the child would pretend to be in love with his favourite and threatened to take her for his wife — “You are too old,” said little Smart; the rival answered, if that was objection he would send his son; he answered in verse as follows, addressing the lady.” Source: The Poetical Works of Christopher Smart: Volume IV: Miscellaneous Poems, English and Latin. Edited by Karina Williamson. Oxford University Press, USA (May 21, 1987) ISBN-10: 0198127685 ISBN-13: 978-0198127680 pages 3, 411. See also: Google Books

This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse