Two days you've larded here; a third, you know,
Makes guests and fish smell strong; pray go
You to some other chimney, and there take
Essay of other giblets; make
Merry at another's hearth! you're here
Welcome as thunder to our beer."
Manners know distance, and a man unrude
Would soon recoil, and not intrude
His stomach to a second meal. No, no,

Thy house, well fed and taught, can show
No such crabbed visard: Thou hast learned thy train
With heart and hand to entertain ;

And by the armsful, with the breast unhid,
As the old race of mankind did

When either's heart, and either's hand did strive
To be the nearer relative:

Thou dost redeem those times; and what was lost.
Of ancient honesty, may boast

It keeps a growth in thee, and so will run
A course in thy fame's pledge, thy son.
Thus, like a Roman Tribune, thou thy gate
Early sets ope to feast, and late;
Keeping no currish waiter to affright,

With blasting eye, the appetite,

Which fain would waste upon thy cates, but that
The trencher creature marketh what

Best and more suppling piece he cuts, and by

Some private pinch tells danger's nigh—
A hand too desp'rate, or a knife that bites
Skin deep into the pork, or lights
Upon some part of kid, as if mistook,

When checked by the butler's look.

TRUE HOSPITALITY.

No, no, thy bread, thy wine, thy jocund beer

Is not reserved for Trebins here,

But all who at thy table seated are,

Find equal freedom, equal fare: And thou, like to that hospitable god,

Jove, joy'st when guests make their abode
To eat thy bullock's thighs, thy veals, thy fat
Wethers, and never grudged at

The pheasant, partridge, godwit, reeve, ruff, 1ail,
The cock, the curlew, and the quail:
These, and thy choicest viands do extend
Their taste unto the lower end

Of thy glad table; not a dish more known
To thee, than unto any one.

But as thy meat, so thy immortal wine

Makes the smirk face of each to shine,

And spring fresh rosebuds, while the salt, the wit
Flows from the wine, and graces it;
While reverence, waiting at the bashful board,
Honours my lady and my lord.

No scurrile jest, no open scene is laid

Here, for to make the face afraid;

But temp'rate mirth dealt forth, and so discreet-
Ly, that it makes the meat more sweet,
And adds perfumes unto the wine, which thou
Dost rather pour forth, than allow

By cruise and measure; thus devoting wine
As the Canary Isles were thine;
But with that wisdom and that method, as
No one that's there his guilty glass
Drinks of distemper, or has cause to cry

Repentance to his liberty.

THE WASSAIL.

Like to a solemn sober stream,

Banked all with lilies, and the cream

Of sweetest cowslips filling them.

Then may your plants be pressed with fruit, Nor bee nor hive you have be mute,

But sweetly sounding like a lute.

Next, may your duck and teeming hen,
Both to the cock's tread say, amen;

And for their two eggs render ten.

Last, may your harrows, shares, and ploughs, Your stacks, your stocks, your sweetest mows, All prosper by your virgin-vows.

Alas! we bless, but see none here,
That brings us either ale or beer;
In a dry house all things are near.

Let's leave a longer time to wait,
Where rust and cobwebs bind the gate,
And all live here with needy fate;

Where chimneys do for ever weep,
For want of warmth, and stomachs keep
With noise the servants' eyes from sleep.

It is in vain to sing, or stay

Our free feet here, but we 'll away;

Yet to the Larés this we'll say:

The time will come when you'll be sad,
And reckon this for fortune bad,

T'have lost the good ye might have had.

T was, and still my care is,
To worship ye, the Larès,
With crowns of greenest parsley,
And garlic chives not scarcely;
For favours here to warm me,

And not by fire to harm me;

For gladding so my hearth here

With inoffensive mirth here;

That while the Wassail bowl here

With North-down ale doth trowl here,

No syllable doth fall here,

To mar the mirth at all here.

For which, O chimney-keepers!

I dare not call ye sweepers,

So long as I am able

To keep a country table,

Great be my fare, or small cheer,

I'll eat and drink up all here.

THE WASSAIL BOWL.

ADDRESSED TO HIS FRIEND JOHN WICKES.

NEXT will I cause my hopeful lad,

If a wild apple can be had,

To crown the hearth;

Larr thus conspiring with our mirth;

Then to infuse

Our browner ale into the cruise,