Eager desires confound my first intent,
Succeeding shame does more success prevent,
And rage at last confirms me impotent.
Some have called this poem the best ever composed on the subject of premature ejaculation. Safe to assume that those who think this have yet to stumble across “The Disappointment” by Aphra Behn. Split the difference: call it the best poem on the subject written from the man’s perspective. Here’s the truth about the Earl of Rochester: his verse NSFW. Laced with four-letter words of sexual suggestion that goes well beyond mere suggestion, those who often find literary works of the past deemed controversial because of their explicitness tame enough to air on TV Land will be more than satisfied with the Earl’s forays into raunch. Yes, he uses imagery to describe acts, but that’s the line which blurs the distinction between erotic and mere pornography. Still, his focus on sexual activities could well get him tagged a pornographer by not just little old ladies even today.
Lorrain he Stole, by Fraud he got Burgundy
Flanders he bought 'ods you Shall pay for't one day.
King Louis insulted the poet when he was a member of the British Ambassador’s entourage by refusing to meet with him. Legend has it that in response to this insult, Rochester defaced a French monument to the king with his efficiently composed couplet accusing Louis of illegal seizure and annexation of regions incorporated into the kingdom. Louis would also make a cameo appearance in another poem which draws an unflattering comparison between then-reigning French and British kings:
“Like the French fool, that wanders up and down
Starving his people, hazarding his crown.”
There are some modest Fools, we dayly see,
Modest, and dull, why they are Wits, to thee!
For of all Folly, sure the very top,
Is a conceited Ninny and a Fop.
Rochester engaged in a public feud with a now-forgotten literary figure named Sir Carr Scroope. The irony is that Scroope would be lost to the dusty archives of historical footnotes had Rochester not written verse to make public whatever private enmity may have existed between them. By making spectacle of their disagreements, Rochester conducted a pointless vendetta to which the passage of time has lent greater meaning than existed at the time. Exactly what Rochester had against Scroope is only hinted at in this poem, but clearly Rochester had a bias against foppish gentlemen with conceited pretensions toward literary worth. Wit being the height of intellectual superiority during the Restoration, Scroope’s major fault seems to be that in Rochester’s view he was a simpleton too thick even to be aware of what he was.
Were I (who to my cost already am
One of those strange, prodigious 1 creatures, man)
A spirit free to choose, for my own share
What case of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,
I’d be a dog, a monkey, or a bear,
Or anything but that vain animal,
Who is so proud of being rational.
The lighthearted wit and focus on sexuality began to fade as the Earl began to age. Of course, that is a relative statement since he was dead before seeing his thirty-fifth birthday. Darkness ensued, introspection replace libertinism and Hobbesian philosophies began to eat into the urge to drink, have sex, and be merry. The transformation into a poetic mind with an aim more substantial than constantly proving himself the wittiest person in the room carried with a potential for maturation which might have seen Rochester become a serious figure in the history of British verse. Just when he was starting to question the validity of human existence, however, his own came to an abrupt end.
