Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO AN OLD WIFE TALKING TO HIM, by JOHN HALL (1627-1656)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO AN OLD WIFE TALKING TO HIM, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Peace, beldam ugly! Thou'lt not find
Last Line: That tom-a-lincoln and bow bell!
Alternate Author Name(s): Hall Of Durham, John
Subject(s): Marriage; Weddings; Husbands; Wives


PEACE, beldam ugly! thou'lt not find
M'ears bottles for enchanted wind;
That breath of thine can only raise
New storms, and discompose the seas.
It may (assisted by the clatter)
A Pigmaean army scatter
Or move, without the smallest stream,
Loretto's chapel once again,
And blow St. Goodrick, while he prays,
And knows not what it is he says,
And helps false Latin with a hem
From Finckly to Jerusalem;
Or in th' Pacific sea supply
The wind, that nature doth deny.
What dost thou think, I can retain
All this and sprout it out again,
As a surcharged whale doth spew
Old rivers to receive in new?
Thou art deceiv'd: even Aeol's cave
That can all other blasts receive,
Would be too small to let in thine;
How, then, the narrow ears of mine?
Defect of organs may me cause
By chance to pillorize an ass;
Yet, should I shake his ears, they'd be,
Though long, too strait to hearken thee.
Yet if thou hast a mind to hear
How high thy voice's merits are,
Attend the Cham, and when he's din'd
Skreek princes leave that have a mind;
Or serve the States, thou'lt useful come,
And have the pay of every drum;
Or trudge to Utrecht, there outrun
Dame Skurman's score of tongues, with one.
But pray be still; O, now I fear,
There may be torments for the ear!
O, let me, when I chance to die,
In Vulcan's anvil buried lie,
Rather than hear thy tongue once knell, --
That Tom-a-Lincoln and Bow bell!





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