decorously by a row of sedate and serious gentlemen in correct evening dress:—
"Seamen three! what men be ye?
Gotham's three wise men we be.
Whither in your bowl so free?
To rake the moon from out the sea.
The bowl goes trim, the moon doth shine,
And our ballast is old wine;
And your ballast is old wine.
"Who art thou so fast adrift?
I am he they call Old Care.
Here on board we will thee lift.
No: I may not enter there.
Wherefore so? 'T is Jove's decree
In a bowl Care may not be;
In a bowl Care may not be.
"Fear ye not the waves that roll?
No: in charmed bowl we swim.
What the charm that floats the bowl?
Water may not pass the brim.
The bowl goes trim, the moon doth shine,
And our ballast is old wine;
And your ballast is old wine."
Last, but by no means least, in "Crotchet Castle," we have a drinking-song at once the kindest and the most scandalous that the poet ever wrote,—a song which is the final, definite, unrepentant expression of heterodoxy:—
