A love poem from a physician to his mistress

By poets we are well assured

That love, alas! can ne'er be cured;

A complicated heap of ills,

Despising boluses and pills.

Ah! Chloe, this I find is true,

Since first I gave my heart to you.

Now, by your cruelty hard bound,

I strain my guts, my colon wound.

Now jealousy my grumbling tripes

Assaults with grating, grinding gripes.

When pity in those eyes I view,

My bowels wambling make me spew.

When I an amorous kiss design'd,

I belch'd a hurricane of wind.

Once you a gentle sigh let fall;

Remember how I suck'd it all;

What colic pangs from thence I felt,

Had you but known, your heart would melt,

Like ruffling winds in cavern pent,

Till Nature pointed out a vent.

How have you torn my heart to pieces

With maggots, humours, and caprices!

By which I got the hemorrhoids;

And loathsome worms my anus voids.

Whene'er I hear a rival named,

I feel my body all inflamed;

Which, breaking out in boils and blains,

With yellow filth my linen stains;

Or, parch'd with unextinguish'd thirst,

Small-beer I guzzle till I burst;

And then I drag a bloated corpus,

Swell'd with a dropsy, like a porpus;

When, if I cannot purge or stale,

I must be tapp'd to fill a pail.