By T. J. With a reply by Alex. Brome.—(A.D. 1657.)
Hold, hold, quaff no more,
But restore
If you can what you’ve lost by your drinking:
Three kingdoms and crowns,
With their cities and towns,
While the King and his progeny’s sinking.
The studs in your cheeks have obscured his star, boys,
Your drinking miscarriages in the late war, boys,
Have brought his prerogative now to the war, boys.
Throw, throw down the glass!
He’s an ass
That extracts all his worth from Canary;
That valour will shrink
That’s only good in drink;
’Twas the cup made the camp to miscarry.
You thought in the world there’s no power could tame ye,
You tippled and whored till the foe overcame ye;
God’s nigs and Ne’er stir, sirs, has vanquish’d God damn me.
Fly, fly from the coast,
Or you’re lost,
And the water will run where the drink went;
From hence you must slink,
If you have no chink,
’Tis the course of the royal delinquent;
You love to see beer-bowls turn’d over the thumb well,
You like three fair gamesters, four dice, and a drum well,
But you’d as lief see the devil as Fairfax or Cromwell.
Drink, drink not the round,
You’ll be drown’d
In the source of your sack and your sonnets;
Try once more your fate
For the King against the State,
And go barter your beavers for bonnets.
You see how they’re charm’d by the King’s enchanters,
And therefore pack hence to Virginia for planters,
For an act and two red-coats will rout all the ranters.
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.