ELIZABETH CARTER

“A Dialogue”

 Says Body to Mind, ’Tis amazing to see,
We’re so nearly related yet never agree,
But lead a most wrangling strange Sort of a Life,
As great Plagues to each other as Husband and Wife.
The Fault is all your’s, who with flagrant Oppression,                                    5
Encroach ev’ry Day on my lawful Possession.
The best Room in my House you have seiz’d for your own,
And turn’d the whole Tenement quite upside down,
While you hourly call in a disorderly Crew
Of vagabond Rogues, who have nothing to do                                               10
But to run in and out, hurry scurry, and keep
Such a horrible uproar, I can’t get to sleep.
There’s my kitchen sometimes is as empty as Sound,
I call for my Servants, not one’s to be found:
They all are sent out on your Ladyship’s Errand,                                             15
To fetch some more riotous Guests in, I warrant!
And since Things are growing, I see, worse and worse,
I’m determined to force you to alter your Course.
Poor Mind, who hear all with extreme Moderation,
Thought it now Time to speak, and make her Allegation.                              20
‘Tis I, that, methinks, have most Cause to complain,
Who am crampt and confin’d like a Slave in a Chain.
I did but step out, on some weighty Affairs,
To visit, last Night, my good Friends in the Stars.
When, before I was got half as high as the Moon,                                           25
You dispatch’d Pain and Languor to hurry me down;
Vi & Armis they seiz’d me, in Midst of my Flight.
And shut me in Caverns as dark as the Night.
‘Twas no more, reply’d Body, than what you deserv’d,
While you rambled Abroad, I at Home was half starv’d:                                30
And, unless I had closely confin’d you in Hold,
You had left me to perish with Hunger and Cold.
I’ve a Friend, answers Mind, who, tho slow, is yet fare,
And will rid me, at last, of your insolent Power:
Will knock down at your Mud Walls, the whole Fabric demolishes,             35
And at once your strong Holds and my Slav’ry abolish:
And while in the Dust your dull Ruins decay,
I shall snap off my Chains, and fly freely away.

NOTES:

 27 Vi & Armis “With force and arms. Words used in [legal] indictments, etc. to express the charge of a forcible and violent committing any crime or trespass” (T. E. Tomlins, The Law-dictionary, vol. VI [1811], p. 351 [Google Books]).

Source: Poems on Several Occasions, 3rd edition (London, 1776), pp. 25-27. [Google Books]

Edited by Julia Ruiz