One and his Mistress a-dying.
SHALL we die
Both thou and I,
And leave the world behind us?
Come, I say,
And let's away,
For nobody here doth mind us.
Why do we gape?
We cannot scape
The doom that is assign'd us;
When we are in grave,
Altho' we rave,
There is nobody needs to bind us.
The clerk shall sing,
The sexton ring,
And old wives they shall wind us;
The priest shall lay
Our bones in clay,
And nobody there shall find us.
Farewell wits,
And folly's fits,
And griefs that often pined us!
When we are dead
We'll take no heed
What nobody says behind us.
Merry nights,
And false delights,
Adieu! ye did but blind us:
We must to mould,
Both young and old,
Till nobody's left behind us.
From John Cotgrave's Wit's Interpreter, 1655.
A health to his Mistress.
TO her whose beauty doth excel
Story, we toss these cups and sell
Sobriety a sacrifice
To the bright lustre of her eyes.
Each soul that sips here is divine:
Her beauty deifies the wine.