Vulgar words in L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas (Page 1)

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bastard x 1
            

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If all the world Should, in a pet of temperance, feed on pulse, Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but frieze, The All-giver would be unthanked, would be unpraised, Not half his riches known and yet despised; And we should serve him as a grudging master, As a penurious niggard of his wealth, And live like Nature's bastards, not her sons, Who would be quite surcharged with her own weight, And strangled with her waste fertility: The earth cumbered, and the winged air darked with plumes, The herds would over-multitude their lords; The sea o'erfraught would swell, and the unsought diamonds Would so emblaze the forehead of the deep, And so bestud with stars, that they below Would grow inured to light, and come at last To gaze upon the sun with shameless brows.

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