ON CANARY.

Or all the rare juices,

That Bacchus or Ceres produces,
There's none that I can, nor dare I
Compare with the princely Canary.
For this is the thing

That a fancy infuses,
This first got a king,

And next the nine Muses;

'Twas this made old poets so sprightly to sing, And fill all the world with the glory and fame

on't,

They Helicon call'd it, and the Thespian spring, But this was the drink, though they knew not the name on't.

Our cider and perry,

May make a man mad, but not merry,
It makes people wind-mill pated,
And with crackers sophisticated;
And your hops, yest, and malt,
When they're mingled together,
Makes our fancies to halt,

Or reel any whither;

It stuffs up our brains with froth and with yest,

That if one would write but a verse for a bell

man,

He must study till Christmas for an eight shilling

jest,

These liquors wont raise, but drown and o'erwhelm man.

Our drowsy metheglin

Was only ordain'd to inveigle in

The novice, that knows not to drink yet, But is fuddled before he can think it: And your claret and white

Have a gunpowder fury,

They're of the French spright,

But they wont long endure you.

And your holiday muscadine, Alicant and tent, Have only this property and virtue that's fit in't. They'll make a man sleep till a preachment be

But we neither can warm our blood nor wit in't.

The bagrag and Rhenish

You must with ingredients replenish;

'Tis a wine to please ladies and toys with,

But not for a man to rejoice with.

But 'tis sack makes the sport, And who gains but that flavour, Though an abbess he court,

In his high-shoes he'll have her;

'Tis this that advances the drinker and drawer: Though the father came to town in his hobnails and leather,

He turns it to velvet, and brings up an heir,

In the town in his chain, in the field with his feather.

THE POLITICIAN.

WRITTEN IN 1649.

WHAT madness is't for him that's wise
To be so much self-hating?
Himself and his to sacrifice,

By meddling still with things too high,
That don't concern but gratify

His lechery of prating.

What is't to us who's in the ruling power?
While they protect, we're bound t' obey,

But longer not an hour.

Nature made all alike at first,

But men that fram'd this fiddle
Of government made best and worst,
And high and low, like various strings,
Each man his several ditty sings,

To tune this state down diddle.

In this grand wheel, the world, we're spokes made

But that it may still keep its round,

[all,

Some mount while others fall.

The blinded ruler, that by night
Sits with his host of bill-men,

With their chalk'd weapons, that affright
The wond'ring clown that haps to view
His worship and his gowned crew,

As if they sate to kill men.

Speak him but fair, he'll freely let you go;
And those that on the high rope dance,

Will do the same trick too.

I'll ne'er admire

That fatuous fire,

That is not what it seems;

For those, that now to us seem higher,
Like painted bubbles blown i' th' air,
By boys seem glorious and fair,

'Tis but in boys' esteems.

Rule of itself's a toil, and who would bear it,
But that 'twixt pride and avarice

And close revenge they'll share it.

Since all the world is but a stage,

And every man a player,

They're fools that lives or states engage;
Let's act and juggle as others do,
Keep what's our own, get others' too,
Play whiffler, clown, or mayor.

For he that sticks to what his heart calls just,
Becomes a sacrifice and prey

To the prosperous whirligig's lust.

Each wise man first best loves himself,
Lives close, thinks, and obeys,
Makes not his soul a slave to's pelf,
Nor idle squanders it away,
To cram their maws that taxes lay

On what he does or says:

For those grand chords that man to man do twist,

Now are not honesty and love,

But self and interest.

SATISFACTION.

I HAVE often heard men say,

That the philosophers of old,

Though they were good, and grave, and gray, Did various opinions hold,

And with idolatry adore

The gods, that themselves had made before, And we that are fools do do no more.

Every man desires what's good;
But wherein that good consists
Is not by any understood.

This sets on work both pens and fist,
For this condemns what that approves,

And this man doth hate what that man loves. And that's the grand rule that discord moves.

This would valiant be, that wise,

That's for th' sea, and this for land;

All do judge upon surmise,

None do rightly understand.

These may be like, but are not that;
Something there is that all drive at,
But only they differ about the WHAT.

And from all these several ends
Springs diversity of action;
For every man his studies bends,
As opinion builds his faction:
Each man's his own god-smith; what he
Thinks good, is good to him; and we
First make, then adore our deity.