"An Extempore upon a Faggot" is an eight-line poem of unknown authorship dating from the mid-17th century.
In September 2010, Jennifer Batt, lecturer in English at Jesus College, Oxford, published a version of the poem found in the 1708 Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany Poems,[1] part of the Harding Collection at the Bodleian Library.
[2] The original anthology attributes this version to John Milton.
[3] Have you not in a Chimney seen A Faggot which is moist and green; How coyly it receives the Heat, And at both ends do's weep and sweat?
So fares it with a tender Maid, When first upon her Back she's laid; But like dry Wood th' experienc'd Dame Cracks and rejoices in the Flame.