The Hesperides & Noble Numbers/Hesperides/A Lyric to Mirth

by Robert Herrick

111. A LYRIC TO MIRTH.

While the milder fates consent,
Let's enjoy our merriment:
Drink, and dance, and pipe, and play;
Kiss our dollies night and day:
Crowned with clusters of the vine,
Let us sit, and quaff our wine.
Call on Bacchus, chant his praise;
Shake the thyrse, and bite the bays:

Rouse Anacreon from the dead,
And return him drunk to bed:
Sing o'er Horace, for ere long
Death will come and mar the song:
Then shall Wilson and Gotiere
Never sing or play more here.

Wilson, Dr. John Wilson, the singer and composer, one of the king's musicians (1594-1673). Gotiere, Jacques Gaultier, a French lutist at the court of Charles I.