Poem by Alexander Brome

The Answer

1.

STay, stay, prate no more,
Lest thy brain, like thy purse run 'th score
Though thou strain'st it;
Those are Traytors in grain,
That of sack do complain,
And rail by 'ts own power against it.
Those Kingdoms and Crowns which your poetry pities,
Are faln by the pride and hypocrisie of Cities,
And not by those brains that love sack & good dities.
The K. and his progeny had kept 'um from sinking,
Had they had no worse foes, then the Lads that love drinking,
We that tipple ha' no leisure for plotting or thinking.

2.

He, he is an Asse
That doth throw down himself with a glass
Of Canary;
He that's quiet will think
Much the better of drink,
'Cause the cups made the camp to miscarry you lie,
You whore though we tipple, and there my friend
Your sports did determine in the month before July,
There's less fraud in plain dam me, then your sly by my truly:
'Tis Sack makes our blouds both the purer & warmer;
We need not your priest or the feminine charmer,
For a bowl of Canary's a whole suite of armour.

3.

Hold, hold, not so fast;
Tipple on, for there is no such hast
To be going:
We drowning may fear,
But your end will be there
Where there is neither swiming, nor rowing:
We were Gamesters alike, and our stakes were both down boyes,
But Fortune did favour you being her own boyes,
And who would not venture a cast for a crown boyes.
Since we wear the right colours he the worst of our foes is,
That goes to traduce us, and fondly supposes,
That Cromwel is an enemy to Sack and red noses.

4.

Then, then quaffe it round,
No deceit in a brimmer is found;
Here's no swearing,
Beer and Ale makes you prate
Of the Kirk and the State,
Wanting other discourse worth the hearing:
This strumpets your Muses, to ballad or flatter
Or rail, and your betters with froth to bespa•ter,
And your talk's all diurnals and Gunpowder mat∣ter:
But we (while old Sack does divinely inspire us)
Are active to do what our Rulers require us,
And attempt such exploits as the world shall ad∣mire us.

1. To his Mistress (LAdy you'l wonder when you see)
2. The Damosel
3. Plain Dealing
4. The Wary Woer
5. On the Queens Arrival

Robert Service The Answer ("Bill has left his house of clay")

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