Maidenhead

[Seasider]

The Maidenhead

Have you not in a chimney seen
A sullen faggot wet and green,
How coyly it received the heat,
And at both ends does fume and sweat?

So goes it with the harmless maid
When first upon her back she’s laid:
But the well-experienced dame,
Cracks and rejoices in the flame.

I read in one of the weekend papers that this poem is being attributed by some to our high-minded and pious Puritan poet John Milton.
I read this poem, laughed, and closed the book feeling rather guilty. It was included in The Penguin Book of Comic and Curious Verse ed JMCohen, published in 1952. Professor Cohen attributed it to John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester...a 17th. Century Libertine and scatalogical versifier who died at 33 after a life of Excess!!
Will this run? Will there be a revisionist narrative of John Milton?
Personally I'd love it. Great poet undoubtedly, but domineering, chauvinist prig.If you doubt me read Wife to Mr Milton by Robert Graves.

[Emil Miller]

I don't know if it is by Milton but I'm sure some of us can attest to its accuracy. :D

[OrphanPip]

I'm no expert of 17th century poetry, but it doesn't strike me as having the wit of John Wilmot, nor does it seem like anything I've read by Milton before.

I was able to find through a google search that scholars doubt the attribution to Milton. It seems the poem is attributed to monarchist contemporaries trying to slander him.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11396660

It seems completely out of step with the work of the man who wrote this poem about the loss of virginity:

SONNET IX.

TO A VIRTUOUS YOUNG LADY.

LADY, that in the prime of earliest youth
Wisely hast shunn'd the broad way and the green,
And with those few art eminently seen,
That labour up the hill of heavenly truth;
The better part with Mary and with Ruth
Chosen thou hast; and they that overween,
And at thy growing virtues fret their spleen,
No anger find in thee, but pity and ruth.
Thy care is fix'd, and zealously attends
To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light,
And hope that reaps not shame. Therefore be sure,
Thou, when the bridegroom with his feastful friends
Passes to bliss at the mid hour of night,
Hast gain'd thy entrance, Virgin wise and pure.

[JuniperWoolf]

Maidenhead poem:

To His Coy Mistress
by Andrew Marvell

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

[March Hare]

The news of the Milton scandal has reached the bookslut blog. Seems it's big news if it's here and there. But the great thing is, thanks to the whole silly subject, JuniperWoolf posted Marvell's poem and now I know the source for the title of a Robert Penn Warren novel. Thank you Juniper. Thank you Seasider. Much obliged.