“The thirsty earth drinks up the rain,
And thirsts and gapes for drink again.”
Its strained and borrowed conceits which have lost all charm in the borrowing, are not in accordance with anything so natural and simple as conviviality. Men may give a thousand foolish reasons for loving, and feel their folly still unjustified; but drinking needs no such steel-forged chain of arguments. Moreover Cowley’s last lines,—
“Fill all the glasses up, for why
Should every creature drink but I?
Why, man of morals, tell me why?”
give to the poem an air of protest which destroys it. The true drinking-song does not concern itself in the least with the “man of morals,” nor with his verdict. And precisely because it is innocent of any conscious offense against morality, because it has not considered the moral aspect of the case at all, it makes its gay and graceless appeal to hearts wearied with the perpetual consideration of social reforms and personal responsibility. “Be merry, friends!” it says in John Heywood’s homely phrase,—
“Mirth salveth sorrows most soundly:”
and this “short, sweet text” is worth a solid sermon in days when downright merriment is somewhat out of favor.
The poet who of all others seems least aware that life has burdens, not only to be carried when sent, but to be rigorously sought for when withheld, is Robert Herrick. He is the true singer of Cakes and Ale, or rather of Curds and Cream; for in that pleasant Devonshire vicarage, where no faint echo of London streets or London taverns rouses him from rural felicity, his heart turns easily to country feasts and pastimes. It is true he rejoices mightily in