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The works of Mr. Thomas Brown

Serious and Comical, In Prose and Verse; In four volumes. The Fourth Edition, Corrected, and much Enlarged from his Originals never before publish'd. With a key to all his Writings

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On his Friend Owen Swan, at the Black Swan-Tavern in Bartholomew-Lane.
  
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On his Friend Owen Swan, at the Black Swan-Tavern in Bartholomew-Lane.

Mankind, unjustly Poets Atheists call,
They're Atheists who adore no God at all.
We Court the Vine, whose all-enlivening Heat,
Does noble Flights and lively Thoughts create.
Bacchus, to thee we daily Altars raise,
When warm'd with Liquid Joy, we sound thy Praise.
Nor can he be less than a God, whose Juice
Does every Minute something great produce.
Wit's the rich Product of the teeming Vine,
Its great Creator is Almighty Wine.
And powerful Love, arm'd with resistless Fires,
Which melts the stubborn Soul to soft Desires.
Then, Owen, since the God of Wine has made
Thee Steward of the gay Carousing Trade,
Whose Art decaying Nature still supplies,
Warms the faint Pulse, and sparkles in our Eyes,

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Be bountiful, like him, bring t'other Flask,
Were the Stairs wider, we wou'd have the Cask.
This Pow'r we from the God of Wine derive.
Draw such as this, and I pronounce thou'lt Live.