Mel Heliconium :: :: University of Virginia Library

Remember this, all you that spend
Your life on drink, and mark your end:
As oft as cups and pots you tosse,
So oft the river Styx you crosse.
You'r Owls, you do not love the light,
You are the sons of Hell and night:
Black Erybus begot you then,
You'r Monsters sure, you are not men.
You are afraid, that if you dye,
Your bodies should unburied lye;
And so your souls be forc'd to trade
A hundreth yeers in death's black shade,
Before you can admitted be
In Charons boat; this you foresee:
And wisely to prevent this soare,
You'l be intomb'd in drink before.
And thus you make your Funerall
Your selves by times in wine and oil.
You have an old and leaking throat,
Still sucking in like Charons boat;
No company you will admit,
But who are buried in the pit
Of wine, whose mouths must fraughted be
With coin, such are your company.
O Lord, before I go from hence,
Give me a joyfull conscience,
That I may joyfully ride on
The billows of affliction.

Save me, O God, from this foul vice
Of drunkennesse, and from avarice:
When Death's wherry shall receive me,
Let not then thy comfort leave me;
So shall I not fear Charons looks,
Nor be dismaid to crosse these brooks,
Of Styx, Cocytus, Acharon,
Nor waves of scalding Phlegeton.