Ballad—in Great News

Anacreon tells us that mortals mere clods, By the drink they love best are exalted to gods, And fate there's no lie in the truth on't, don't wine, Though as beastly as devils, make topers divine? Three treads in a trice makes a god of poor snip, Tars are every one Neptunes when e'er they drink flip, To be Jove, or Apollo, or Mars, would ye chuse, Ah! you've nothing to do but get drunk with Rambooze.

Then a natural transition from heaven, if you go Down to hell, ah! you'll find them all drinking below, Each striving in Lethe to hurry his care; The seducer forgets when he ruined the fair, Greeks the pillory forget they so richly deserve, The usurer forgets when he let the man starve, The perjurer forgets that he died in his shoes, But let us all such rascals forget in Rambooze.

Our Shelah, cried out, one day, making her moan. From my arms, where I held him fast, Taddy is gone, And though in my presence he always will stay, For ever the wanton young rogue's fled away: I'm dead, and I'm kilt, and shall never recover, Heaven take me, or give me that heaven, my lover, Teach me how to be mad, or my senses to lose, My dear creature, cried I, just get drunk with Rambooze.

When hard at the whiskey an Irishman pulls, In search of Europas, he rides upon bulls, Of liquors large libations Italians scare swallow, But every squalini becomes an Apollo: Then each fair one's a goddess, don't every she, Like an angel, talk scandal, whene'er she drinks tea, You most Helicon sip, would you turn to a muse, And, if you'd be Bacchus, get drunk with Rambooze.

But did I not stop I should never have done, In me all the Deities centre in one; I'm as valiant as Mars, and as mighty as Jove, As cunning as Mercury, as am'rous as Love: I'm Apollo and Momus, together for wit, And I boast an Olympus my godship to fit, For what better heaven, upon earth, can I choose, Than good health, a kind wife, a true friend and Rambooze?