Classic Poem

The labouring poor, in spite of double pay,
Are saucy, mutinous, and beggarly;
So lavish of their money and their time,
That want of forecast is the nation's crime.
Good drunken company is their delight;
And what they get by day they spend by night.
Dull thinking seldom does their heads engage,
But drink their youth away, and hurry on old age.
Empty of all good husbandry and sense;
And void of manners most when void of pence.
Their strong aversion to behaviour's such,
They always talk too little or too much.
So dull, they never take the pains to think;
And seldom are good natured but in drink. . . .
Nor do the poor alone their liquor prize,
The sages join in this great sacrifice;
The learned men who study Aristotle,
Correct him with an explanation bottle. . . .
The doctors too their Galen here resign,
And generally prescribe specific wine;
The graduate's study's grown an easy task,
While for the urinal they toss the flask;
The surgeon's art grows plainer every hour,
And wine's the balm which into wounds they pour. . . .
Statesmen their weighty politics refine,
And soldiers raise their courages by wine. . . .
Some think the clergy first found out the way,
And wine's the only spirit by which they pray.
But others, less profane than so, agree,
It clears the lungs, and helps the memory:
And, therefore, all of them divinely think,
Instead of study, 'tis as well to drink.