 | Poems |  |
183
ANTISTROPHE.
Come, stretch your silver throats, my lads of wax,To join the thyasus, and glad the god,
Let each distend his windpipe till it cracks,
And make the heavenly brandy merchant nod;
That true born Britons may be free from thinking,
And we eternally be drunk, or drinking;
Empty the Thames, the Severn, Humber, Dee,
And bid their vile, insipid waters flee;
Then exercise a privilege divine,
And fill the boundless vacuum with wine;
Guard us, blithe deity, whene'er we sleep,
Oh, lead us from the dangers of the deep.
If ever I forget thy recent kindness,
May black Perdition strike me dark with blindness;
May heaven suppress the greenness of my youth,
May I be ravish'd by the naked truth.
But this is an episode,
That leads me out of the road,
184
Who'll readily excuse,
This wandering of my pen.
Phœbus, their chief, to crush poor George will pause;
If I transgress the laws,
Because—
I only vex the lady now and then.
'Tis Bacchus only, ruby God, for thee,
We have established this festivity,
To thee we give the festal lay;
To thee we dedicate the honors of the day:
I beg your pardon, His Highness set me right,
To thee we dedicate—the honors of the night.
Here the Major is supposed to allude to his providential escape, in the summer of 1787, from the fangs of a shark, on the coast of Brighthelmstone, which seized him by the Glutæi, while he was bathing with the Prince of Wales. When the Major had recovered from his consternation, and solemnly-thanked the gods for the preservation of his ------, he swore upon the holy evangelists that the voracious fish had a human countenance, and was as like Jack Manners as one pea is to another.
| Poems | |