Classic Poem

Let us drink and be merry, dance, joke and rejoice,
With claret and sherry, theorbo and voice;
The changeable world to our joy is unjust,
All treasure uncertain, then down with your dust;
In frolics dispose your pounds, shillings, and pence,
For we shall be nothing a hundred years hence.

We'll sport and be free with Frank, Betty, and Dolly,
Have lobsters and oysters to cure melancholy;
Fish dinners will make a man spring like a flea,
Dame Venus, love's lady, was born of the sea;
With her and with Bacchus we'll tickle the sense,
For we shall be past it a hundred years hence.

Your beautiful bit who hath all eyes upon her,
That her honesty sells for a hogo of honor,
Whose lightness and brightness doth shine in such splendor
That none but the stars are thought fit to attend her,
Though now she be pleasant and sweet to the sense,
Will be damnable mouldy a hundred years hence.

Then why should we turmoil in cares and in fears,
Turn all our tranquillity to sighs and tears?
Let's eat, drink and play till the worms do corrupt us,
For I say that Post mortem nulla voluptas;
Let's deal with our damsels, that we may from thence
Have broods to succeed us a hundred years hence.

Your usurer that in the hundred takes twenty,
Who wants in his wealth and pines in his plenty,
Lays up for a season which he shall ne'er see,
The year of one thousand eight hundred and three
Shall have changed all his bags, his houses and rents
For a worm-eaten coffin a hundred years hence.

Your Chancery lawyer, who by "conscience" thrives
In spinning a suit to the length of three lives,
A suit which the client doth wear out in slavery,
Whilst pleader makes "conscience" a cloak for his knavery,
May boast of his subtlety i' th' present tense,
But non est inventus a hundred years hence.

Your most Christian monsieur who rants it in riot,
Not suffering his more Christian neighbors live quiet,
Whose numberless legions that to him belongs
Consists of more nations than Babel had tongues,
Though numerous as dust, in despite of defence,
Shall all lie in ashes a hundred years hence.

We mind not the councils of such bloody elves;
Let us set foot to foot, and be true to ourselves;
Our honesty from our good-fellowship springs;
We aim at no selfish preposterous things.
We'll seek no preferment by subtle pretence,
Since all shall be nothing a hundred years hence.