THE CARELESS GALLANT
OR,
A Farewel to Sorrow.
Whether these Lines do please, or give offence,
Or shall be damm'd as neither Wit nor Sence,
The Poet is for that in no suspence,
For 'tis all one a hundred years hence.
To a Pleasant lofty New Tune.
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LEt us drink and be merry, dance, joke, and rejoyce,
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With Claret and Sherry, Theorbo and voice,
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The changeable world to our joy is unjust,
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All treasures uncertain,
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Then down with your dust;
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In frolicks despose your pounds, shillings, and pence,
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For we shall be nothing a hundred years hence.
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We'l sport and be free with Frank, Betty, and Dolly,
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Have Lobsters and Oysters to cure melancholly,
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Fish Dinners will make a man spring like a Flea,
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Dame Venus, loves Lady
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Was born of the Sea,
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With her and with Bacchus, we'l tickle the sence,
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For we shall be past it a hundred years hence.
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Your beautiful bit who hath all eyes upon her,
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That her honesty sells for a hogo of honour,
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Whose lightness and brightness doth cast such a splender;
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That none are thought fit
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But the stars to attend her,
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Though now she seems pleasant and sweet to the sence,
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Will be damnable mouldy a hundred years hence.
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Your greatest grand Seignior who rants it in riot,
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Not suffering his poor Christian neighbours live quiet,
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Whose number less army that to him belongs,
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Consists of more nations,
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Then Babel hath tongues,
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Though numerous as dust, yet in spite of defence,
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Shall all lye in ashes a hundred years hence.
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Your Usurer that in the hundred takes twenty,
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Who wants in his wealth, and pines in his plenty,
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Laies up for a season which he shall ne'r see,
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The year of one thousand,
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Eight hundred and three,
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Shall have chang'd all his baggs, his houses and Rents,
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For a worm-eaten Coffin a hundred years hence.
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Your Chancery-Lawyer who by conscience thrives,
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In spinning a sute to the length of three lives,
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A sute which the Clyent doth wear out in slavery,
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whilst pleader makes conscience
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a cloak for his knavery,
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Can boast of his cunning but i'th present Tense,
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For non est inventus a hundred years hence.
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Then why should we turmoyl in cares and in fears,
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And turn our tranquility to sighs and tears,
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Lets eat, drink and play e're the worms do corrupt us,
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For I say that,
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Post mortem nulla voluptas,
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Lets deal with our Damsels that we may from thence,
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Have broods to succeed us a hundred years hence.
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I never could gain satisfaction upon
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Your dreams of a bliss when we'r cold as a stone,
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The Sages call us Drunkards, Gluttons, and Wenchers;
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but we find such Morsels,
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upon their own Trenchers:
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For Abigal, Hannah, and sister Prudence,
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Will simper to nothing a hundred years hence.
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The Plush-coated Quack that his fees to inlarge,
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Kills people with Licence, and at their own charge,
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Who builds a vast structure of ill gotten wealth,
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from the dreggs of a piss-pot,
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and ruines of health,
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Though treasures of life be pretends to dispence,
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Shall be turn'd into mummy a hundred years hence.
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The Butterfly Courtier that pageant of state,
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The Mouse-trap of honour, and May-game of fate,
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With all his ambitions, intrigues, and his tricks,
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must dye like a Clown,
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and then drops into Stix,
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His plots against death, are too slender a fence,
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For he'l be out of place a hundred years hence.
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Yea, the poet himself that so loftily sings,
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As he scorns any subjects, but Hero's or Kings,
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Must to the Capricio's of fortune submit,
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and often be counted
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a fool for his wit,
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Thus beauty, wit, wealth, law, learning and sense,
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All comes to nothing a hundred years hence.
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