Drinking Song

Come along my good fellow

Let's sit and get mellow

For sorrow we haven’t got leisure

We've money and time

And that's just the prime

To enjoy it in comfort & pleasure

Call for ale or else wine

On roast beef we dine

And joy we shall have without measure

The parson may preach

Against ale, and beseech

His church folks to head no such liquor

But in neat sanded rooms

With young girls in their blooms

Pray who'd ever think of the vicar?

Then leave that dull dunce

Let's have sandwich for lunch

And pull at the tankard or pitcher

Let the dull parson think

Was he here but to drink

He would say beer was made for to please us

When man is a dry

A good sermon's my eye

The vicar?  His task is to tease us

Tankards foam o'er the rim

Where the fly loves to swim

And that is the lecture to please us

So come my old fellow

Let's go and get mellow

For care brings no hour of leisure

We've money and time

And just now in prime

To sit down enjoying our pleasure

'Tis summer's prime hours

And the room smells of flowers

Now boys, is the season for leisure

John Clare, Selected Poems,

ed. J.W. and Anne Tibble (Everyman, 1965)