The JUDICIOUS BACCHANAL

While the bottle to humour, and social delight, The smallest assistance can lend, While it happily keeps up the laugh of the night, Or enlivens the mind of a friend:

O let me enjoy it, ye bountiful powers! That my time may deliciously pass; And should care ever think to intrude on my hours, Scare the haggard away with a glass,

But instead of a rational feast of the sense, Should discord preside o'er the bowl, And folly debate, or contention commence, From too great an expansion of soul:

Should the man I esteem, or the friend of my breast, In the ivy, feel nought but the rod; Should I make sweet religion, a profligate, jest, And daringly sport with my God,

From my lips dash the poison, O merciful fate! Where the madness or blasphemy hung; And let every accent which virtue should hate. Parch quick on my infamous tongue.

From my sight let the curse be eternally driven, Where my reason so fatally stray'd; That no more I may offer an insult to heav'n, Or give man a cause to upbraid.