Here With my beer I sit, While golden moments flit: Alas! They pass Unheeded by: And, as they fly, I, Being dry, Sit, idly sipping here My beer.
The new generation of American poets do not mean, it would appear, to be confined in the old metrical grooves. Very different in style are the verses written on ale by Thomas Wharton, in 1748. A Panegyric on Oxford Ale is the title of the poem, which is prefaced by the lines from Horace:—
Mea nec Falernæ Temperant vites, neque Formiani Pocula colles.
{14}
The poem opens thus:—
Balm of my cares, sweet solace of my toils, Hail, Juice benignant! O’er the costly cups Of riot-stirring wine, unwholesome draught, Let Pride’s loose sons prolong the wasteful night; My sober evening let the tankard bless, With toast embrown’d, and fragrant nutmeg fraught, While the rich draught with oft repeated whiffs Tobacco mild improves. Divine repast! Where no crude surfeit, or intemperate joys Of lawless Bacchus reigns; but o’er my soul A calm Lethean creeps; in drowsy trance Each thought subsides, and sweet oblivion wraps My peaceful brain, as if the leaden rod Of magic Morpheus o’er mine eyes had shed Its opiate influence. What though sore ills Oppress, dire want of chill-dispelling coals, Or cheerful candle (save the makeweight’s gleam Haply remaining), heart-rejoicing Ale Cheers the sad scene, and every want supplies.
There exist, sad to relate, persons who, with the notion of promoting temperance, would rob us of our beer. Many of these individuals may act with good motives, but they are weak, misguided bodies who, if they but devoted their energies to promoting ale-drinking as opposed to spirit-drinking, would be doing useful service to the State, for malt liquors are the true temperance drinks of the working classes. The Bill (for the encouragement of private tippling) so long sought to be introduced by the teetotal party, was cleverly hit off in Songs of the Session, published in The World some years back:—
If with truth they assure us that liquors allure us, I don’t think ’twill cure us the taverns to close; When in putting drink down, sirs, you’ve shut up the Crown, sirs, You’ll find Smith and Brown, sirs, drunk under the rose.
“Men are slaves to this custom,” you cry; “we can’t trust ’em!” Very good; then why thrust ’em from scenes where they’re known If the daylight can’t shame ’em, or neighbours reclaim ’em, Do you think you can tame ’em in haunts of their own? {15}