The Careless Gallant▪ Or, A farewell to Sorrow.  
Whether these Lines do please, or give offence,  
Or shall be damned as neither wit nor sense,  
The Poet is, for that, in no suspense,  
For it is all one a hundred years hence.  
To an Excellent, and delightful Tune.  

 
 

LEt us sing and be merry, dance, joke, and rejoice,  
With Claret and Sherry, Theorbo and voice,  
The changeable world to our joy is unjust,  
All treasures uncertain,  
Then down with your dust:  

In frolicks dispose your pounds, shillings, and pence,  
For we shall be nothing a hundred years hence.    

We'll sport, and be free, with Frank, Betty, and Dolly,  
Have Lobsters and Oysters to cure melancholy,  
Fish-dinners will make a man spring like a Flea,  
Dame Venus, loves Lady,  
Was born of the Sea:  

With her and with Bacchus we'll tickle the sense,  
For we shall be passed it a hundred years hence.    

Your beautiful bit, who hath all eyes upon her,  
That her honesty sells for a hogo of honour,  
Whose lightness and brightness doth cast such a splendour,  
That none are thought fit,  
But the Stars to attend her;  

Though now she seems pleasant, & sweet to the sense  
Will be damnable mouldy a hundred years hence.    

Your greatest Grand-Seignior who rants it in riot,  
Not suffering his poor Christian neighbours live quiet,  
Whose numberless army that to him belongs,  
Consists of more Nations,  
Than Babel hath tongues:  

Though numerous as dust, yet in spite of defence,  
Shall all lie in ashes a hundred years hence.    

Your Usurer that in the hundred takes twenty,  
Who wants in his wealth, and pines in his plenty,  
Lays up for a season which he shall ne'er see,  
The year of one thousand,  
Eight hundred and three;  

Shall have changed all his Bags, his houses and Rents,  
For a wormeaten Coffin a hundred years hence     

The Second Part,  
to the same Tune.  
 
 

YOur Chancery-Lawyer, who by conscience thrives,  
In spinning a suit to the length of three lives,  
A suit which the Client doth wear out in slavery,  
whilst pleader makes conscience  
a cloak for his Knavery:  

Can boast of his cunning but i'th' present-Tence,  
For Non est inventus a hundred years hence.    

Then why should we turmoil in cares and fears?  
And turn our tranquillity to sighs and tears,  
Let's eat, drink, and play,  the worms do corrupt us,  
For I say, that  
Post mortem nulla voluptas:  

Let's deal with our Damsels, that we may from thence  
Have broods to succeed us a hundred years hence.    

I never could gain satisfaction upon,  
Your dreams of a bliss when we're cold as as a stone,  
The Sages, call us Drunkards, Gluttons, & wenchers,  
But we find such Morsels,  
upon their own Trenchers:  

For Abigal, Hannah, and sister Prudence,,  
Will simper to nothing a hundred years hence.    

The Plush-coated Quack that his fees to enlarge,  
Kills people with Licence, and at their own charge  
Who builds a vast structure of ill gotten wealth,  
from the degrees of a Pisspot,  
and ruins of health:  

Though treasures of life he pretends to despence  
Shall be turned into mummy a hundred years hence.    

The Butterfly Courtier that Peagant of state,  
The Mousetrap of honour, and May-game of fat●  
With all his ambitions, intrigues, and his tricks  
must die like a Clown,  
and then drop into Styx;  

His plots against death, are too slender a fence,  
For he'll be out of fashion a hundred years hence.    

Yea, the Poet himself that so loftily sings,  
As he scorns any subjects, but Hero's or Kings,  
Must to the Capriccios of fortune submit,  
and often be counted  
a fool for his ' wit,  
Thus beauty, wit, wealth, law learning, and sense  
All come to nothing a hundred years hence.     

Printed for F. Coles, T. Vere, J. Wright, and J. Clarke ●