The satirist John Wolcot (1738 – 1819), known as Peter Pindar (after Pindar, the ancient Greek poet), wrote this poem on the perils of elopement.
ON MODERATION
Says some one – I forget the Poet;
And verily the Bard was in the right.
Wild as a puppy chasing butterflies,
The world hunts TRANSPORT with keen nose eyes;
Deceitful Lass, who oven proves a bite!
The purling brook, the woodbine bow’r,
The grove’s, the valley’s sweet and simple song;
MORN’s virgin blush, and EVENING’s setting ray,
On more than half the world are thrown away,
Whose joys must like a whirlwind pour along.
Ne’er panting for a hurricane of rapture:
Calm let me walk – not riotous and jumping:
With due decorum, let my heart
Perform a sober, quiet part,
Not at the ribs be ever bumping, bumping.
RAPTURE’s a Charger – often breaks his girt,
Runs off, and flings his rider in the dirt.
Lo! when for Gretna Green the couple start,
LOVE plays his gambols through each throbbing heart:
Squeezing and hugging, kissing, on they go;
Wild, from the chaise, they poke their heads to JOHN,
“Make haste, dear JOHN, drive on, drive on, drive on –
“Lord! lord! your horses are so very slow!”
And while, for Gretna Green, each turtle sights,
The BLACKSMITH* seems an Angel in their eyes.
But when this BLACKSMITH has perform’d his part,
Possession quells the tumults of the heart;
The heart with foaming bliss no more boils over!
Now leisurely into the chaise they get!
They ask no John to drive, nor horse to sweat!
No eyes keen sparkle throws the burning lover;
No kitties midst the jolting road they snap;
CAELIA now takes a comfortable nap:
Down on her cheeks, her locks dischevell’d flow;
Not vastly smooth, but much like locks of hay;
Her cap not much resembling Alpine snow,
Shook from her rolling wearied head away.
The YOUTH too, with his noodle on his breast;
His hair all careless, much in hay-like trim;
As though sweet wedlock’s joys had lost their zest;
As though a dull indifference damn’d the whim;
With mouth half shut, that heavy seems to say,
“The devil take the BLACKSMITH and the day,
“Who tied me to that trollop, now my wife,
“Just like a jack-ass to a post, for life!”
*Also a Divine, who gains a comfortable maintenance by making matrimonial chains as well as horse-shoes.
Derby Mercury, 3 August 1797
Wolcot was born in Dodbrooke, near Kingsbridge, Devon, a country surgeon’s son. Educated as a doctor – and ordained as an Anglican clergyman – he also discovered in 1780 that he had a talent for writing satires. His victims included members of the Royal Academy and, soon after, George III and Queen Caroline. In 1786 he published The Lousiad, a Heroi-Comic Poem, which took its name from a legend that a louse had once appeared on the King’s dinner plate. Other subjects were James Boswell, James Bruce (Abyssinian traveller), Hannah More (feminist and playwright), and Bishop Porteus. He was often threatened with legal action and switched to less dangerous targets. By 1798 his powers were waning and his serious work was of little merit. He subsisted on the sale of his copyrights. Almost forgotten now, his work is not the kind that was collected in anthologies (his humour was too rambling, its references too dated).
Sources
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume XI. The Period of the French Revolution.
The Works of Peter Pindar, Vol 1 (Google Books)