Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.

The Wish

Walter Pope (c. 1627–1714)

IF I live to be old, for I find I go down,

Let this be my fate: In a country town,

May I have a warm house, with a stone at the gate,

And a cleanly young girl to rub my bald pate.

Chorus.May I govern my passion with an absolute sway,

And grow wiser and better as my strength wears away,

Without gout or stone, by a gentle decay.

May my little house stand on the side of a hill,

With an easy descent to a mead and a mill,

That when I’ve a mind I may hear my boy read,

In the mill if it rains, if it’s dry in the mead.
May I govern, etc.

Near a shady grove, and a murmuring brook,

With the ocean at distance, whereon I may look,

With a spacious plain, without hedge or stile,

And an easy pad-hag to ride out a mile.
May I govern, etc.

With Horace and Petrarch, and two or three more

Of the best wits that reign’d in the ages before;

With roast mutton, rather than ven’son or teal,

And clean tho’ coarse linen at every meal.
May I govern, etc.

With a pudding on Sundays, with stout humming liquor,

And remnants of Latin to welcome the Vicar,

With Monte-Fiascone or Burgundy wine,

To drink to the King’s health as oft as I dine.
May I govern, etc.

May my wine be vermillion, may my malt-drink be pale,

In neither extreme, or too mild or too stale;

In lieu of deserts, unwholesome and dear,

Let Lodi or Parmisan bring up the rear.
May I govern, etc.

Nor Tory, or Whig, Observator or Trimmer

May I be, nor against the law’s torrent a swimmer.

May I mind what I speak, what I write, and hear read,

But with matters of State never trouble my head.
May I govern, etc.

Let the Gods who dispose of every king’s crown,

Whom soever they please set up and pull down.

I’ll pay the whole shilling imposed on my head,

Though I go without claret that night to my bed.
May I govern, etc.

I’ll bleed without grumbling, though that tax should appear

As oft as new moons, or weeks in a year;

For why should I let a seditious word fall

Since my lambs in Utopia pay nothing at all.
May I govern, etc.

Though I care not for riches, may I not be so poor,

That the rich without shame cannot enter my door;

May they court my converse, may they take much delight,

My old stories to hear in a winter’s long night.
May I govern, etc.

My small stock of wit may I not misapply,

To flatter ill men, be they never so high,

Nor misspend the few moments I steal from the grave,

In fawning and cringing like a dog or a slave.
May I govern, etc.

May none whom I love, to so great riches rise,

As to slight their acquaintance, and their old friends despise;

So low or so high may none of them be,

As to move either pity or envy in me.
May I govern, etc.

A friendship I wish for, but alas, ’tis in vain!

Jove’s store-house is empty, and can’t it supply;

So firm that no change of times, envy, or gain,

Or flattery, or woman, should have power to untie.
May I govern, etc.

But if friends prove unfaithful, and fortune a whore,

Still may I be virtuous though I am poor;

My life then as useless, may I freely resign,

When no longer I relish true wit and good wine.
May I govern, etc.

To outlive my senses may it not be my fate,

To be blind, to be deaf, to know nothing at all;

But rather let death come before ’tis too late,

And while there’s some sap in it, may my tree fall.
May I govern, etc.

I hope I shall have no occasion to send

For priests or physicians till I am near to mine end,

That I have eat all my bread, and drank my last glass,

Let then come them, and set their seals to my pass.
May I govern, etc.

With a courage undaunted, may I face my last day,

And when I am dead may the better sort say,

‘In the morning when sober, in the evening when mellow

He’s gone, and left not behind him his fellow.’
May I govern, etc.

Without any noise when I’ve pass’d o’er the stage,

And decently acted what part Fortune gave,

And put off my vest in a cheerful old age,

May a few honest fellows see me laid in my grave.
May I govern, etc.

I care not whether under a turf or a stone,

With any inscription upon it, or none;

If a thousand years hence, Here lies W. P.

Shall be read on my tomb, what is it to me?
May I govern, etc.

Yet one wish I add, for the sake of those few

Who in reading these lines any pleasure shall take,

May I leave a good fame, and a sweet-smelling name.

AMEN. Here an end of my wishes I make.

Chorus.May I govern my passion with an absolute sway,

And grow wiser and better as my strength wears away,

Without gout or stone, by a gentle decay.