Miscellaneous writings of the late Dr. Maginn :: :: University of Virginia Library

“Let us drink and be merry,
Dance, joke, and rejoice,
With claret and sherry,
Theorbo and voice.”
So sings the old song,
And a good one it is;
Few better were written,
From that day to this:
And I hope I may say it,
And give no offence,
Few more will be better,
An hundred years hence.

II

In this year eighteen hundred
And twenty and two,
There are plenty of false ones
And plenty of true.
There are brave men and cowards;
And bright men and asses;
There are lemon-faced prudes;
There are kind-hearted lasses.
He who quarrels with this
Is a man of no sense,
For so 'twill continue
An hundred years hence.

III

There are people who rave
Of the national debt,
Let them pay off their own
And the nation's forget;
Others bawl for reform,
Which were easily done,
If each would resolve
To reform Number One;

258

For my part to wisdom
I make no pretence,
I'll be as wise as my neighbors
An hundred years hence.

IV

I only rejoice, that
My life has been cast
On the gallant and glorious
Bright days which we've past;
When the flag of Old England
Waved lordly in pride,
Wherever green Ocean
Spreads his murmuring tide:
And I pray that unbroken
Her watery fence
May still keep off invaders,
An hundred years hence.

V

I rejoice that I saw her
Triumphant in war,
At sublime Waterloo,
At dear-bought Trafalgar;
On sea and on land,
Wheresoever she fought,
Trampling Jacobin tyrants
And slaves as she ought:
Of Church and of King
Still the firmest defence:—
So may she continue
An hundred years hence.

VI

Whey then need I grieve, if
Some people there be,
Who, foes to their country,
Rejoice not with me;
Sure I know in my heart,
That Whigs ever have been
Tyrannic, or turnspit,
Malignant, or mean:
They were and are scoundrels
In every sense,
And scoundrels they will be
An hundred years hence.

VII

So let us be jolly,
Why need we repine?
If grief is a folly,
Let's drown it in wine!
As they scared away fiends
By the ring of a bell,
So the ring of the glass
Shall blue devils expel:
With a bumper before us
The night we'll commence
By toasting true Tories
An hundred years hence.