Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/537

 445. A Drinking-Song

Bacchus must now his power resign— I am the only God of Wine! It is not fit the wretch should be In competition set with me, Who can drink ten times more than he.

Make a new world, ye powers divine! Stock'd with nothing else but Wine: Let Wine its only product be, Let Wine be earth, and air, and sea— And let that Wine be all for me!

WILLIAM BROOME

?-1745

446. The Rosebud

Queen of fragrance, lovely Rose, The beauties of thy leaves disclose! —But thou, fair Nymph, thyself survey In this sweet offspring of a day. That miracle of face must fail, Thy charms are sweet, but charms are frail: Swift as the short-lived flower they fly, At morn they bloom, at evening die: Though Sickness yet a while forbears, Yet Time destroys what Sickness spares: Now Helen lives alone in fame, And Cleopatra's but a name: Time must indent that heavenly brow, And thou must be what they are now.