CONVIVIAL.
Tune, Mrs. Casey.
When round reflection foggy Care
His dreary damp disperses,
And Prudence, with didactic air,
Her cautious code rehearses;
Then grant us, gods, some glowing wine,
Such foes of glee to banish;
’Twill make our heart’s horizon shine,
And ev’ry vapour vanish.
CHORUS.
Then laugh and drink,
And never think;
Each frisky festive fellow
Will seize the time,
The season’s prime,
T’ enjoy the fruit while mellow.
The heights of love we can’t attain,
Till wine’s electric potion
Reach the summit of the brain,
To quicken Fancy’s motion:
Then Nature’s still, with rapid flow,
In am’rous fermentation,
Fills thro’ the worm the vat below
With luscious distillation.
When safe arriv’d our latter end,
And time to dust shall grind us,
Our atoms can’t the eyes offend
Of neighbours left behind us:
If with the heart-expanding bowl,
Inspiring love and laughter,
We soak the body and the soul,
’Twill lay the dust hereafter.
The hardy tars more valiant fight,
The soldiers sally quicker,
The poets with more spirit write,
When charg’d with conqu’ring liquor:
And to sorrow-sinking hearts
Wine’s the true salvation;
For, take enough, and soon departs
Suspended animation.
His journey soon must end, they say,
Who drives thro’ life so quickly;
And, ere in years his hair turn gray,
His body will be sickly:
If Velnos’ Syrup he pursue,
’Twill strengthen trunk and twig, Sir;
And if his hair should change its hue,
He can but mount a wig, Sir.
Kind Fortune, fix the jolly soul
On Plenty’s full-plum’d pinion,
To soar beyond the sad control
Of Poverty’s dominion;
And when, with eager fatal claw,
You take him by the throttle,
His precious cork of life to draw,
O Death! don’t shake the bottle.
THE
HIGH-METTLED P⸺O.
Tune, The Race Horse.
View the lass lewd and lovely, of high sporting race,
Prepar’d to encounter the lustful embrace;
Her t—s wide extended, her tempting breasts bare,
The lustful receiver conceal’d by black hair:
While ruddy and rampant, erecting his crest,
With ardour rebounding from knee to the breast,
The signal observ’d, firmly fix’d on his seat,
The high-mettled P⸺o first starts for the heat.
Full stretch’d, crossing, justling, see onward they rush,
And o’er the same ground three times speedily push;
Till weary’d, worn out, we behold P⸺o tame,
As he crawls off the course lifeless, jaded, and lame.
A short time elaps’d, when examin’d his case,
He’s found sorely injur’d by running the race;
And the high mettl’d P⸺o, erst proud and elate,
Is pronounc’d by the knowing ones in for the plate.
Confin’d to the stable, shut out from the stud,
Restrain’d in his diet, and oft losing blood,
He’s plaister’d and poultic’d, in linen rags rob’d,
Fir’d, purg’d, and bolus’d, cut, syring’d, and prob’d;
Till burning like stones that are turn’d into lime,
Alas! luckless P⸺o’s cut off in his prime.
Lament the hard fate this sad story informs,
The high-mettl’d P⸺o’s made food for the worms.