"I am old, but let me drink; Bring me spices, bring me wine; I remember, when I think, That my youth was half divine. "Wine is good for shrivell'd lips, When a blanket wraps the day, When the rotten woodland drips, And the leaf is stamp'd in clay. "Sit thee down, and have no shame, Cheek by jowl, and knee by knee: What care I for any name? What for order or degree? "Let me screw thee up a peg; Let me loose thy tongue with wine : Callest thou that thing a leg? Which is thinnest thine or mine? "Thou shalt not be saved by works: Thou hast been a sinner too : Ruin'd trunks on wither'd forks, Empty scarecrows, I and you! "Fill the cup, and fill the can: Have a rouse before the morn: Every minute dies a man, Every minute one is born. "We are men of ruin'd blood; Therefore comes it we are wise. Fish are we that love the mud, Rising to no fancy-flies. "Name and fame! to fly sublime Thro' the courts, the camps, the schools, Is to be the ball of Time, Bandied in the hands of fools. Friendship!—to be two in one Let the canting liar pack! Well I know, when I am gone, How she mouths behind my back. "Virtue to be good and justEvery heart, when sifted well, Is a clot of warmer dust, Mix'd with cunning sparks of hell. "O! we two as well can look Whited thought and cleanly life As the priest, above his book Leering at his neighbour's wife. "Fill the cup, and fill the can: Have a rouse before the morn: Every minute dies a man, Every minute one is born. Drink, and let the parties rave: They are fill'd with idle spleen ; Rising, falling, like a wave, For they know not what they mean. "He that roars for liberty Faster binds the tyrant's power; And the tyrant's cruel glee Forces on the freer hour. "Fill the can, and fill the cup: All the windy ways of men Are but dust that rises up, And is lightly laid again. "Greet her with applausive breath, Freedom, gaily doth she tread; In her right a civic wreath, In her left a human head. 1 "No, I love not what is new; She is of an ancient house: And I think we know the hue "Let her go! her thirst she slakes Where the bloody conduit runs : Then her sweetest meal she makes On the first-born of her sons. "Drink to lofty hopes that coolVisions of a perfect State : Drink we, last, the public fool, Frantic love and frantic hate. "Chant me now some wicked stave, Till thy drooping courage rise, And the glow-worm of the grave Glimmer in thy rheumy eyes. |