The Contented Prisoner His Praise of Sack
How happy’s that Prisoner
That conquers his fates,
With silence, and ne’re
On bad fortune complaines,
But carelessely playes
With his Keyes on the Grates,
And makes a sweet consort
With them and his chayns.
He drowns care with Sack,
When his thoughts are opprest,
And makes his heart float,
Like a Cork in his Breast.
The Chorus.
Then,
Since we are all slaves,
That Islanders be,
And our Land’s a large prison,
Inclos’d with the Sea:
Wee’l drink up the Ocean,
To set our selves free,
For man is the World’s Epitome.
Let Pirates weare Purple,
Deep dy’d in the blood
Of those they have slain,
The scepter to sway.
If our conscience be cleere,
And our title be good,
With the rags we have on us,
We are richer then they.
We drink down at night,
What we beg or can borrow,
And sleep without plotting
For more the next morrow.
Since we, &c.
Let the Usurer watch
Ore his bags and his house,
To keep that from Robbers,
He hath rackt from his debtors,
Each midnight cries Theeves,
At the noyse of a mouse,
Then see that his Trunks
Be fast bound in their Fetters.
When once he’s grown rich enough
For a State plot,
Buff in an hower plunders
What threescore years got.
Since we, &c.
Come Drawer fill each man
A peck of Canary
This Brimmer shall bid
All our senses good-night.
When old Aristotle
Was frolick and merry,
By the juice of the Grape,
He turn’d Stagarite.
Copernicus once
In a drunken fit found,
By the coruse [course] of his brains,
That the world turn’d round.
Since we, &c.
Tis Sack makes our faces
Like Comets to shine,
And gives beauty beyond
The Complexion mask,
Diogenes fell so
In love with this Wine,
That when ’twas all out,
He dwelt in the Cask.
He liv’d by the s[c]ent
Of his Wainscoated Room;
And dying desir’d
The Tub for his Tombe.
Since we, &c.