Who sickened in the time of his Vacancy, being forbid to go to London by reason of the Plague. <br /> <br /> <br />Here lies old Hobson. Death hath broke his girt, <br />And here, alas! hath laid him in the dirt; <br />Or else, the ways being foul, twenty to one <br />He’s here stuck in a slough, and overthrown. <br />’T was such a shifter that, if truth were known, <br />Death was half glad when he had got him down; <br />For he had any time this ten years full <br />Dodged with him betwixt Cambridge and The Bull. <br />And surely Death could never have prevailed, <br />Had not his weekly course of carriage failed; <br />But lately, finding him so long at home, <br />And thinking now his journey’s end was come, <br />And that he had ta’en up his latest Inn, <br />In the kind office of a Chamberlin <br />Showed him his room where he must lodge that night, <br />Pulled off his boots, and took away the light. <br />If any ask for him, it shall be said, <br />“Hobson has supped, and ’s newly gone to bed.”<br /><br />John Milton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-the-university-carrier/
