THE Boys Whipped Home: OR, A RHYTHME UPON THE Apprentices Poem, etc. 13. Aug. 1681  

What against Nature! Apprentice Poets too?  
The Laurel Ravished by such things as you!  
See how she fades, and shrinks from your command:  
Plant-Animal! she flies your Artless hand.  
Long since she hated Noise and sooty smells,  
And in serene and quiet Champions dwells:  
The heavenly Muse's scorn to be confined  
Within the Limits of a servile Mind:  
Their thoughts are boundless, as the Aetherial Sky,  
And born by winged Imagination, fly  
Above the reach of those that trembling stand,  
Beneath the Terror of a Master's Hand.   

Poor Boys! Just from A-B-C Whippins come,  
That scarce secure from Atkins fate, their Bum:  
At a Cit's Table now preferred to wait,  
With Looks demure, to change a Greasy Plate;  
Where 've picked up some Tory-Scraps of State  
From the Grave Softness of their Master's Pate.  
Huge Politicians grown of much might!  
Champions Equiped to Fight, to Write, to Sh—  
If Master gives 'em leave; shut Cupboard too  
A Mouse will do as much as they can do.   

Poor Boys! A brace of Bucks was made their cheer  
To show their Courage, Hearted like a Deer,  
Whose spreading Horns foretell the future Fates  
Their Wives shall fix upon their graver Pates.   

Unhappy Youths! misguided by your Zeal,  
Come mind your Shops, and not the Common-weal.  
To his most steady hand; who stears the Throne  
Best, by that Sacred Judgement of his own:  
Around whose Temples rests a blissful Crown,  
Self guarded by the Powers of his Frown,  
'Gainst all, but those insatiate Woolves of Rome  
May English Mastiffs prove their hasty Doom.   

But come Poor Boys, ye may in time be wise,  
Despair not, there are better ways to Rise:  
Fellow your Trades, and you may chance to be,  
Thought worthy of their Master's Pedigree:  
His pretty modest Daughter he'll bestow,  
Which you're acquainted with before, or so:  
To whom 've sung Ballad-obscenity  
The very Zenith of your Poetry.  
When Shops shut down sitting on Jolted knee.   

Thus hopefully you'll rise, and time may place  
An Alderman's upon your Beardless Face:  
Where grunting out scarce sense, 'tis understood  
The Apothegme of the Brotherhood.   
FINIS.   

London, Printed for Lu. Smith, 1681.