Page:Poetical Works of John Oldham.djvu/198



HOUGH much concerned to lose my dear old friend, I must however his design commend Of fixing in the country; for were I As free to chose my residence as he, The Peak, the Fens, the Hundreds, or Land's-end, I would prefer to Fleet-street, or the Strand. What place so desert, and so wild is there, Whose inconveniences one would not bear, Bather than the alarms of midnight fire, The fall of houses, knavery of cits, The plots of factions, and the noise of wits, And thousand other plagues, which up and down Each day and hour infest the cursèd town? As fate would have it, on the appointed day Of parting hence, I met him on the way,