My Dear G.
My Dear G.
Original Text
Sydney Smith, The Letters of Peter Plymley, intro. G. C. Heseltine (London: J. M. Dent, 1929): 284. PR 5456 A5H4 Robarts Library
2The pain in my knee
3Would not suffer me
5I can laugh and talk,
6But I cannot walk;
7And I thought his Grace would stare
8If I put my leg on a chair.
9And to give the knee its former power
11And in this very disagreeable state,
12If I had come at all, I should have been too late.
Notes
1] G.: Miss G. Harcourt. Back to Line
4] bohea: a common tea, so-called from the Wu-i (sounded with a "b") hills in north of Fuhkien, where tea (from Chinese `cha') was grown (OED). Smith's rhyme shows that "bohea" was pronounced with two syllables. Back to Line
10] fomented: soaked in warm medicinable lotions. Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2002
Form