That shall infuse eternal spring,
And everlasting flourishing:
Drink every letter on't in stum,[1]
And make it brisk champagne become;570
Where'er you tread, your foot shall set
The primrose and the violet;
All spices, perfumes, and sweet powders,
Shall borrow from your breath their odours;
Nature her charter shall renew,575
And take all lives of things from you;
The world depend upon your eye,
And when you frown upon it, die.
Only our loves shall still survive,
New worlds and natures to outlive;580
And like to heralds' moons, remain
All crescents, without change or wane.
Hold, hold, quoth she, no more of this,
Sir Knight, you take your aim amiss;
For you will find it a hard chapter,585
To catch me with poetic rapture,
In which your mastery of art
Doth show itself, and not your heart;
Nor will you raise in mine combustion,
By dint of high heroic fustian:590
She that with poetry is won,
Is but a desk to write upon;
And what men say of her, they mean
No more than on the thing they lean.
- ↑ Stum (from the Latin mustum) is any new, thick, unfermented liquor. Hudibras means that bad wine would turn into good, foul muddy wine into clear sparkling champagne, by drinking the widow's health in it. It was a custom among the gallants of Butler's time, to drink a bumper to their mistress' health to every letter of her name. The custom prevailed among the Romans: thus the well-known epigram of Martial:
Lævia sex cyathis, septem Justina bibatur,
Quinque Lycas, Lyde quatuor, Ida tribus.
Omnis ab infuso numeretur amica falerno.—Ep. I. 72.
For every letter drink a glass
That spells the name you fancy,
Take four, if Suky be your lass,
And five, if it be Nancy.
