Page:Poetical Works of John Oldham.djvu/62

52 Got not repute by war alone, but thee, He knew he ne'er could conquer by sobriety, And drunk, as well as fought, for universal monarchy. Pox o' that lazy claret! how it stays! Were it again to pass the seas, 'Twould sooner be in cargo here, 'Tis now a long East-India voyage, half a year. 'Sdeath! here's a minute lost, an age I mean, Slipped by, and ne'er to be retrieved again. For pity suffer not the precious juice to die, Let us prevent our own, and its mortality: Like it, our life with standing and sobriety is palled, And like it too, when dead, can never be recalled. Push on the glass, let it measure out each hour, For every sand an health let's pour, Swift as the rolling orbs above, And let it too as regularly move; Swift as heaven's drunken red-faced traveller, the sun, And never rest till his last race be done, Till time itself be all run out, and we Have drunk ourselves into eternity. Six in a hand begin! We'll drink it twice apiece, A health to all that love and honour vice! Six more as oft to the great founder of the vine! (A god he was, I'm sure, or should have been) The second father of mankind I meant, He, when the angry powers a deluge sent, When for their crimes our sinful race was drowned, The only bold and venturous man was found, Who durst be drunk again, and with new vice the world replant. The mighty patriarch 'twas of blessed memory, Who 'scaped in the great wreck of all mortality, And stocked the globe afresh with a brave drinking progeny.