THE ANSWER.
By Alex. Brome.
Stay, stay, prate no more,
Lest thy brain, like thy purse, run the score,
Though thou strain’st it;
Those are traitors in grain
That of sack do complain,
And rail by its own power against it.
Those kingdoms and crowns which your poetry pities,
Are fall’n by the pride and hypocrisy of cities,
And not by those brains that love sack and good ditties;
The K. and his progeny had kept them from sinking,
Had they had no worse foes than the lads that love drinking,
We that tipple ha’ no leisure for plotting or thinking.
He is an ass
That doth throw down himself with a glass
Of Canary;
He that’s quiet will think
Much the better of drink,
’Cause the cups made the camp to miscarry.
You whore while we tipple, and there, my friend, you lie,
Your sports did determine in the month of July;
There’s less fraud in plain damme than your sly by my truly;
’Tis sack makes our bloods both purer and warmer,
We need not your priest or the feminine charmer,
For a bowl of Canary’s a whole suit of armour.
Hold, hold, not so fast,
Tipple on, for there is no such haste
To be going;
We drowning may fear,
But your end will be there
Where there is neither swimming nor rowing.
We were gamesters alike, and our stakes were both down, boys,
But Fortune did favour you, being her own, boys;
And who would not venture a cast for a crown, boys?
Since we wear the right colours, he the worst of our foes is
That goes to traduce, and fondly supposes
That Cromwell’s an enemy to sack and red noses.
Then, then, quaff it round,
No deceit in a brimmer is found;
Here’s no swearing:
Beer and ale makes you prate
Of the Church and the State,
Wanting other discourse worth the hearing.
This strumpet your muse is, to ballad or flatter,
Or rail, and your betters with froth to bespatter,
And your talk’s all dismals and gunpowder matter;
But we, while old sack does divinely inspire us,
Are active to do what our rulers require us,
And attempt such exploits as the world shall admire us.