Classic Poem

W H y should we not laugh and be jolly,
Since all the World now is grown mad?
And lull'd in a dull melancholly;
He that wallows in store
Is still gaping for more.
And that makes him as poor,
As the Wretch that never any thing had.

How mad is that damn'd Money-monger?
That to purchase to him and his heirs,
Grows shriviled with thirst and hunger;
While we that are bonny,
Buy Sack with ready-mony,
And ne'r trouble the Scriveners, nor Lawyers.

Those guts that by scraping and toyling,
Do swell their Revenues so fast,
Get nothing by all their turmoiling,
But are marks of each tax,
While they load their own backs
With the heavier packs,
And lye down gall'd and weary at last.

While we that do traffick in tipple,
Can baffle the Gown and the Sword,
Whose jaws are so hungry and gripple;
We ne'r trouble our heads
With Indentures or Deeds,
And our Wills are compos'd in a word.

Our mony shall never indite us,
Nor drag us to Goldsmiths Hall,
No Pyrats nor wracks can affright us;
We, that have no Estates,
Fear no plunder nor rates,
We can sleep with open gates,
He that lyes on the ground cannot fall.

We laugh at those Fools whose endeavours
Do but fit them for Prisons and Fines,
When we that spend all are the savers;
For if Thieves do break in,
They go out empty agin,
Nay, the Plunderers lose their designs.

Then let us not think on to morrow,
But tipple and laugh while we may,
To wash from our hearts all sorrow;
Those Cormorants which
Are troubled with an itch,
To be mighty and rich,
Do but toyl for the wealth which they borrow.

The Maior of the Town with his Ruff on,
What a pox is he better than we?
He must vail to the man with the Buff on;
Though he Custard may eat,
And such lubbardly meat,
Yet our Sack makes us merrier than he.