Page:Poetical Works of John Oldham.djvu/64

Bid the Canary fleet land here: we'll pay
The freight, and custom too defray:
Set every man a ship, and when the store
Is emptied, let them straight dispatch, and sail for more.
'Tis gone! and now have at the Rhine,
With all its petty rivulets of wine:
The empire's forces with the Spanish we'll combine,
We'll make their drink too in confederacy join.
'Ware France the next: this round Bordeaux shall swallow;
Champagne, Langon, and Burgundy shall follow.
Quick! let's forestall Lorraine;
We'll starve his army, all their quarters drain,
And, without treaty, put an end to the campaign.
Go, set the universe a tilt, turn the globe up,
Squeeze out the last, the slow unwilling drop:
A pox of empty nature! since the world's drawn dry,
'Tis time we quit mortality,
'Tis time we now give out, and die,
Lest we are plagued with dulness and sobriety.
Beset with link-boys, we'll in triumph go,
A troop of staggering ghosts, down to the shades below:
Drunk we'll march off, and reel into the tomb,
Nature's convenient dark retiring-room;
And there, from noise removed, and all tumultuous strife,
Sleep out the dull fatigue, and long debauch of life.
[Tries to go off, but tumbles down, and falls asleep.