A Poor Scholar's Threadbare Suit: DESCRIBED IN A PETITIONARY POEM TO HIS PATRON.  

WOnder not why these Lines come to your hand,  
The Naked truth you soon shall understand,  
I have a Suit to you, that you would be  
So kind as send another Suit to me.  
The Spring appears, and now Beasts, Birds, and Bees,  
The fruitful fields, gay Gardens, and tall Trees  
Are covered; All things that do creep or fly,  
Have gotten their Apparel on, but I;  
Time hath impaired my Breeches, they show, Sir,  
Like the Scotch Flags that hung in Westminster,  
Or Adam's leaves when Mereers shops did grow,  
By Figtree court in Pater-noster-row,  
Round about London all Hedges and Ditches,  
As they catch Wool, wear fragments of my Breeches,  
My patches dangle on my tattered Trowzes,  
Like Hen and Chickens, that hang up in houses;  
And having cracked out the contracting stitches,  
They look rather like Petticoats than Breeches;  
So that my doublet pinned, makes me appear,  
Not like a Man, but a lose Wastcoatiere.  
The Women called me Woman, till the Fools  
Spied their mistake through my Pocket holes,  
My Wastband's wasted, and my Doublet looks  
Like him that wears it, quite off o'the hooks,  
My Eyes are out, and all my Button-moulds,  
Drop, like ripe Hazle Nuts, out of the hulls,  
The Suburbs of my Jacket being gone,  
I have scarce left a Skirt to sit upon;  
My Doublet canvasse worn out quite behind,  
I put a Poem there, to keep out wind;  
Two sly Slaves followed me, and One, or both,  
(Like Boys in Horn-books) Read it through the Cloth:  
My Belly-peeces though, are fat, and will,  
If toasted, serve for Belly-peeces still.  
Last Shrovetide my Fore-skirt (as i'm a Sinner)  
Fell in the Batter, and was fried for Dinner,  
But when the Wench saw how my Jaws did knock it,  
She would have made a Pancake of my Pocket:   

That Land is full of ignorance and ills,  
Where Scholars Teeth, prove their own Pap●● mills.  
That which I name a Shirt, looks like a Clout,  
Which some unhappy Gibbit had worn out,  
But (as I am a true man and a Scholar)  
This very Spring hath purged away my Collar;  
My Weeds are Ploughed and Harrowed, and I know,  
Unless I can get new, 'tis time to Sow.   

About my neck, as you may understand,  
In literal sense, is a right falling band.  
I wear a pair of Cuffs withal, and they,  
Look like those Cuffs which men get in a fray;  
I had a Girdle too, when I was dressed,  
But that is gone long since; ungirt, unblessed;  
Instead of wearing Powdred-hair, my chief  
Invention is, how to get Powdred-beef;,  
My Hatt's so full of holes, I can't devise  
A way how I should pluck it o'er my Eyes;  
My Shoes and I in one condition roll,  
And both appear as if we had no Soul;  
My Stocking calves are best of all my stock,  
Sound as a Bell, but broken in the Clock.  
I am a Clock myself, which if fierce weather,  
Should separate, no art could set together,  
My Books are run away off from my Shelf,  
I cannot quote my Author nor myself,  
And (like the old heroic Tale) they be;  
Jove knows, all in the Land of Lombardy.   

When through Birchin Lane I make my tract,  
No Salesman cries to me What do you lack,  
He sees it well enough, oh wicked age  
That fill'st the Schools with Ruin, Rags and Rage,  
I am patched just like Cottages with Thatch,  
The first Material is the smallest Patch;   

Then pray Sir quickly send me some redress,  
 my suit falls as a Cloud vanishes,  
For now it is (by most men's approbation)  
The next degree unto Annihilation.  
To sum up all, 'tis a confused rude  
Rag, that admits of no similitude,  
So thin, Imagination cannot strike it,  
And so like Nothing, that there's nothing like it.   
T.J.  
FINIS.   

London, Printed for William Whitwood at the Golden-Lyon in Ducklane. 1668.