| |
| THE DAY is set did earth adorn | |
| To drink the brewing of the main, | |
| And, hot with travel, will ere morn | |
| Carouse it to an ebb again. | |
| Then let us drink, time to improve, | 5 |
| Secure of Cromwell and his spies; | |
| Night will conceal our healths, and love, | |
| For all her thousand thousand eyes. | |
| |
| Chorus: Then let us drink, secure of spies, | |
| To Phœbus, and his second rise. | 10 |
| |
| Without the evening dew and showers, | |
| The earth would be a barren place, | |
| Of trees and plants, of herbs and flowers, | |
| To crown her now enamelled face; | |
| Nor can wit spring, nor fancies grow, | 15 |
| Unless we dew our heads in wine, | |
| Plump autumn’s wealthy overflow, | |
| And sprightly issue of the vine. | |
| |
| Chorus: Then let us drink, secure of spies, | |
| To Phœbus, and his second rise. | 20 |
| |
| Wine is the cure of cares and sloth, | |
| That rust the metal of the mind; | |
| The juice that man to man does, both | |
| In freedom and in friendship bind. | |
| This clears the monarch’s cloudy brows, | 25 |
| And cheers the hearts of sullen swains, | |
| To wearied souls repose allows, | |
| And makes slaves caper in their chains. | |
| |
| Chorus: Then let us drink, secure of spies, | |
| To Phœbus, and his second rise. | 30 |
| |
| Wine, that distributes to each part | |
| Its heat and motion, is the spring, | |
| The poet’s head, the subject’s heart;— | |
| ’Twas wine made old Anacreon sing. | |
| Then let us quaff it, whilst the night | 35 |
| Serves but to hide such guilty souls | |
| As fly the beauty of the light; | |
| Or dare not pledge our loyal bowls. | |
| |
| Chorus: Then let us revel, quaff, and sing | |
| Health, and his sceptre to the King. | 40 |
| |
