Something, thou art what I desire to say
To Rochester’s On Nothing poem today,
Ere this dull piece to its subject, Nothing, decay.
Although thou dost enclose many[2] a thing,
For thou art name to all and everything,
Yet I use thee upon this poem Upon Nothing[3].
Starting out it ingeniously conceived
Intriguing theories that I well received,
About how Nothing and, thou, Something interweaved.
It doth present thee in a finer kind,
For in these lines I wit and logic find,
And that this “Something” entertains the human mind.
But soon it would from this blest state divert,
To a political satire[4] convert,
And gradually make humorous attempts pervert[5].
Nothing, thy foe yet to whom thou art son,
Hath been thus stigmatized by reckless John,
When he compares whores’ vows to Nothing’s neutral None.