The Bottle

While nostrums are held out to cure each disease, And to parry with pain, or with death as we please, The protractor of life, and preserver of ease, I have ever yet found in a bottle!

For when care like a clog, hangs about my poor heart, And health from the burden seems bent to depart, I the mill-stone shake off, and Death draws back his dart, When he sees that my Doctor's a bottle.

And should love, whose dominion is ever divine, Drench my doating fond eyes in a deluge of brine, Ev'ry tear that I dropt at bright Venus's shrine, Let me drown in the tears of the bottle!

And as pride may prevail, where it ne'er should take place, E're its impulse my portion of prudence disgrace, Let me nobly renounce all the stiff-necked race, To bend down the stiff-neck of a bottle!

Or should av'rice, the first of all vices I'd shun, Shrink the cords of my heart, I'll bet millions to one, That they soon should expand, like the rays of the sun, And benevolence spring from a bottle.

And when time with his scythe, and his silver toupee, Wou'd my Spirits expel from the mansions of glee, They triumphant shall float in a glorious Red Sea! Which eternally flows from the bottle!