202 CONVIVIAL SONGS. I. MERRY AND WISE. TUNE: Let Care be a Stranger. 1 In temperance train'd, yet I shun not the board, Where Plenty and Freedom their blessings afford; The good things of earth we may freely enjoy, So we taste not of pleasure till pleasure shall cloy. In mirth and good-humour, I own, I delight, When mirth and good-humour are order'd aright Good friends and good-cheer in due season I prize, And my maxim is still-Be ye merry and wise. 2 Should indecency dare to speak out in a jest, Nor scruple I make to pronounce it more wrong When music and verse give it zest in a song. Let wit, like the gold from the furnace be pure, Let verse give the song the chaste ear may endure; I love but that mirth whence no dangers arise, For my maxim is still-Be ye merry and wise. 3 If our wine, or our ale, or whatever we quaff, time, "Tis a meeting unsanction'd by "reason or rhyme", So when strife begins, then I straightway arise, For my maxim is still-Be ye merry and wise. 4 Unless from the feast I retire with clear head, And blameless next morn can arise from my bed, If my neighbour I love not with more cordial heart For the flow of good-humour uncheck'd till we part, I were better at home with my plain bread and cheese, Where my wife and my children endeavour to please, Where all is good humour, and no one denies "Tis the maxim of Wisdom-BE MERRY YE jovial sons of mirth and glee, 2 Of woe and heart-corroding care, 3 The miser, fond of useless store, 4 The Lover, with an April face, For shame! with ardour press the chace, 5 The Courtier, proud ambition's slave, 6 The essenc'd Fop, how vain his air, 7 With heart sincere and free from guile, He scorns a lie to tell O! His friend he welcomes with a smile, This is an honest fellow. 8 Pale envy, wrangling, strife forgot, Be mine one wish to tell O! May joy and peace be still the lot Of every honest fellow. T 9 Then charge each glass and join my lay, III. ARISTIPPUS.* 1 LET care be a stranger to each cheerful soul, Who can, like Aristippus, his passions controul; Of wisest Philosophers wisest was he, Who, attentive to ease, let his mind still be free. The Prince, Peer, or Peasant to him were the same, For, pleas'd, he was pleasing to all where he came; But still turn'd his back on contention and strife, Resolving to live all the days of his life. "To" live all the days of our lives," in a rational, not a Bacchanalian sense, is most desirable; for our mortal existence is a burden, and not a blessing, when the spring of the mind, as well as the sinews of the body, is broken down, and feeble dependence is constrained to lean on extraneous support." Mrs. West's Letters to a Young Lady, Vol. III. p. 371. 3d Edit. |