Alexander Brome (Александр Бром)

The Good-fellow

1.

STay, stay, shut the gate;
T' other quart, faith, it is not so late,
As you're thinking;
Those Stars which you see,
In this hemisphere, be
But the studs in your cheeks by your drinking.
The Sun is gone to tipple all night in the sea boyes;
Tomorrow he'l blush that he's paler then we boyes,
Drink wine, give him water, 'tis sack makes us the boyes.

2.

Fill, fill up the glass,
To the next merry Lad let it pass,
Come away w'it;
Come set foot to foot,
And but give your minds to't,
'Tis heretical six, that doth slay wit.
No helicon like to the juice of the Vine is,
For Phaebus had never had wit, or diviness,
Had his face not been bow-dy'd as thine, his, and mine is.

3.

Drink, drink off your bowls,
We'l enrich both our heads and our souls
With Canary;
A carbuncled face
Saves a tedious race;
For the Indies about us we carry.
Then hang up good faces, we'l drink till our noses,
Give freedome to speak what our fancy disposes;
Beneath whose protection is under the Roses.

4.

This, this must go round,
Off your hats, till that the pavement be crown'd
With your beavers
A red-coated face
Frights a Sergeant at mace,
And the Constable trembles to shivers.
In state march our faces like those of the Qu•rum,
When the Wenches fall down & the vulgar adore 'um,
And our noses, like Link-boyes, run shining before 'um.
An Addition by M. C. Esquire.

5.

Call, call, honest Will,
Hang a long and tedious bill,
It disgraces;
When our Rubies appear,
We justly may swear,
That the reckoning is true by our faces.
Let the Bar-boy go sleep, & the drawers leave roar∣ing.
Our looks wil account without them, had we more in
When each pimple that rises will save a quart sco∣ring.

Alexander Brome’s other poems:

  1. The Prodigal
  2. The Hard Heart
  3. On Claret
  4. The Reformation
  5. Against Corrupted Sack




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