Classic Poem

1

Of all the rare juces,
That Bacchus or Caeres produces,
There's none that I can, nor dare I
Compare with the princely Canary
For this is the thing
That a fancy infuses,
This first got a King,
And next the nine Muses,
'Twas this made old Poets so sprightly to sing,
And fill all the world with the glory and fame on't,
They Helicon call'd it and the Thespian spring,
But this was the drink, though they knew not the name on't.

2

Our Sider and Perry,
May make a man mad but not merry;
It makes people windmill-pated,
And with crackers sophisticated,
And your hopps, yest, and malt,
When they're mingled together,
Makes our fancies to halt,
Or reel any whether.
It stuffs up our brains with froth and with yest,
That if one would write but a verse for a Belman,
He must study till Christmas for an eight shilling jest,
These liquors won't raise, but drown, and o're-whelme man.

3

Our drousy Matheglin
Was only ordain'd to enveigle in,
The Novice that knowes not to drink yet,
But is fudled before he can think it;
And your Claret and White,
Have a Gunpowder fury,
They're of the French spright,
But they wont long endure you
And your holiday Muscadine, Allegant and Tent,
Have only this property and vertue that's fit in't;
They'l make a man sleep till a preachment be spent,
But we neither can warm our blood nor our wit in't.

4

The Bagrag and Rhenish
You must with ingredients replenish;
'Tis a wine to please Ladies and toyes with
But not for a man to rejoyce with
But 'tis Sack makes the sport,
And who gains but that flavour,
Though an Abbesse he court,
In his highshoes he'l have her
'Tis this that advances the drinker and drawer,
Though the father came to Town in his hobnails and leather,
He turns it to velvet, and brings up an Heir,
In the Town in his chain, in the field with his feather.