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15 Why, if 'tis dancing you would be,
43 Therefore, since the world has still
59 There was a king reigned in the East:
2 You eat your victuals fast enough;
3 There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear,
4 To see the rate you drink your beer.
5 But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
6 It gives a chap the belly-ache.
7 The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
8 It sleeps well, the horned head:
9 We poor lads, 'tis our turn now
10 To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
11 Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme
12 Your friends to death before their time
13 Moping melancholy mad:
14 Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad."
16 There's brisker pipes than poetry.
17 Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
18 Or why was Burton built on Trent?
19 Oh many a peer of England brews
20 Livelier liquor than the Muse,
21 And malt does more than Milton can
22 To justify God's ways to man.
23 Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink
24 For fellows whom it hurts to think:
25 Look into the pewter pot
26 To see the world as the world's not.
27 And faith, 'tis pleasant till 'tis past:
28 The mischief is that 'twill not last.
29 Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
30 And left my necktie God knows where,
31 And carried half-way home, or near,
32 Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
33 Then the world seemed none so bad,
34 And I myself a sterling lad;
35 And down in lovely muck I've lain,
36 Happy till I woke again.
37 Then I saw the morning sky:
38 Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
39 The world, it was the old world yet,
40 I was I, my things were wet,
41 And nothing now remained to do
42 But begin the game anew.
44 Much good, but much less good than ill,
45 And while the sun and moon endure
46 Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,
47 I'd face it as a wise man would,
48 And train for ill and not for good.
49 'Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
50 Is not so brisk a brew as ale:
51 Out of a stem that scored the hand
52 I wrung it in a weary land.
53 But take it: if the smack is sour,
54 The better for the embittered hour;
55 It should do good to heart and head
56 When your soul is in my soul's stead;
57 And I will friend you, if I may,
58 In the dark and cloudy day.
60 There, when kings will sit to feast,
61 They get their fill before they think
62 With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
63 He gathered all that springs to birth
64 From the many-venomed earth;
65 First a little, thence to more,
66 He sampled all her killing store;
67 And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
68 Sate the king when healths went round.
69 They put arsenic in his meat
70 And stared aghast to watch him eat;
71 They poured strychnine in his cup
72 And shook to see him drink it up:
73 They shook, they stared as white's their shirt:
74 Them it was their poison hurt.
75 --I tell the tale that I heard told.
76 Mithridates, he died old.