Lord, I confess too, when I dine,
The pulse is Thine,
And all those other bits that be
There placed by Thee.
The worts, the purslain, and the mess
Of water-cress,
Which of Thy kindness Thou hast sent:
And my content
Makes those, and my beloved beet,
To be more sweet.
‘Tis Thou that crown’st my glittering hearth
With guiltless mirth;
And giv’st me wassail bowls to drink,
Spiced to the brink.
With Herrick must be coupled in this connection the name of Cowley, of whom Dr. Johnson said, that ‘if he was formed by nature for one kind of writing more than for another, his power seems to have been greatest in the familiar and the festive.’[138] He was perfectly at home with Anacreontics. That on ‘Drinking’ will be remembered:—
Nothing in nature’s sober found,
But an eternal health goes round.
Fill up the bowl then, fill it high.
Fill all the glasses there, for why
Should every creature drink but I?
Why, men of morals, tell me why?
As will also ‘The Epicure’—the ‘bibamus, moriendum est’ of Seneca:—
Fill the bowl with spicy wine,
Around our temples roses twine,
And let us cheerfully awhile
Like the wine and roses smile.
* * * *
To-day is ours; what do we fear?
To-day is ours, we have it here.
Let’s banish business, banish sorrow;
To the gods belong to-morrow.
Cowley’s death was accelerated by intemperance if we can rely upon the authority of Pope. The event occurred while Dean Sprat was his guest. They had visited in company a neighbour of Cowley’s, who too amply refreshed them. ‘They did not set out for their walk home till it was too late, and had drunk so deep that they lay out in the fields all night. This gave Cowley the fever that carried him off.’
To the same convivial school belongs Sir Richard Fanshawe, to whom the distress of the monarch provided occasion for a toast:—
Come, pass about the bowl to me;
A health to our distressed king!
Though we’re in hold, let cups go free,
Birds in a cage do freely sing.[139]
And Alexander Brome, whose Mad Lover exemplifies the tyranny of excessive drinking:—
I have been in love and in debt and in drink
This many and many a year;
And those three are plagues enough, one would think,
For one poor mortal to bear.
‘Twas drink made me fall into love,
And love made me run into debt;
And though I have struggled and struggled and strove,
I cannot get out of them yet.
There’s nothing but money can cure me
And rid me of all my pain.
‘Twill pay all my debts
And remove all my lets,
And my mistress that cannot endure me
Will love me, and love me again;
Then I’ll fall to loving and drinking amain.