And is antiquity of no more force!
Whoe'er opposed that ancient friendly course,
And free expression of our absent love,
Against the custom of all nations strove
And lost his labour, it does still prevail,
And shall, while there is friendship, wine, or ale.
Let brutes and vegetals, that cannot think,
So far as drought and nature urges, drink;
A more indulgent mistress guides our sprites,
Reason, that dares beyond our appetites,
(She would our care, as well as thirst, redress)
And with divinity rewards excess.
Deserted Ariadne, thus supplied,
Did perjured Theseus' cruelty deride;
Bacchus embraced, from her exalted thought
Banished the man, her passion, and his fault.
Bacchus and Phaebus are by Jove allied,
And each by other's timely heat supplied;
All that the grapes owe to his ripening fires
Is paid in numbers which their juice inspires.
Wine fills the veins, and healths are understood
To give our friends a title to our blood;
Who, naming me, doth warm his courage so,
Shows for my sake what his bold hand would do.
'Twere slender kindness that would not dispense
With health itself, to breed a confidence
Of true love in a friend, and he that quits
Each custom which the rude plebeian gets,
For his reserv'dness will too dearly pay,
Employ the night and loose the cheerful day:
The burnished face oft decked with hoary hairs
Shows drinking brings no death, but to our cares
Who with a full red countenance ends his days,
He sets like Phaebus and discerns his bays.