You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
It gives a chap the bellyache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It hangs low, the horned head:
We poor lads, 'tis our turn now,
To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time
Moping melancholy mad:
Come pipe a tune to dance to lad!
And left my necktie God knows where,
And carried half way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer;
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I've lain,
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.
A. E. Housman
From "Terence, this is stupid stuff"
there's brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh many a peer of England brews
Livlier liquor than the muse,
and malt does more than Milton can
To Justify God's ways to man.
Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Stare into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world's not.
And faith, 'tis pleasant till'tis past:
The mischief is that 'twill not last.