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Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

You know where you did despise


              1You know where you did despise
              2(Tother day) my little Eyes,
              3Little Legs, and little Thighs,
              4And some things, of little Size,
              5              You know where.

              6You, tis true, have fine black eyes,
              7Taper legs, and tempting Thighs,
              8Yet what more than all we prize
              9Is a Thing of little Size,
            10              You know where.

Notes

1] Pope admits in his letter to Cromwell that he thinks of himself as "the Least Thing like a Man in England," partly thanks to the humiliating jesting of a lady recently about his small size. He continues: "some days after, to be reveng'd on her, I presented her amongst other Company the following Rondeau on that occasion ..." (89-90). This is the best evidence of his authorship of the waspish piece, which is accepted as genuine in Minor Poems, ed. Norman Ault and John Butt (London: Methuen, 1954): 61 (PR 3621 B82 Robarts Library).

2] Tother: The other.


Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: letter from Alexander Pope to Henry Cromwell, June 24, 1710, in The Correspondence of Alexander Pope, ed. George Sherburn, Vol. I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956): 90.
First publication date: 26 February 1726
Publication date note: In Mist's Weekly Journal
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 2000.
Recent editing: 4:2002/4/15

Composition date: 1710
Rhyme: aaaab aaaab


Other poems by Alexander Pope