Song XV. The Cnre of Care

Why should we not laugh and be jolly?
Since now all the world is mad;
All lull'd in a dull melancholly:
He that wallows in store,
Is still gaping for more;
And that makes him as poor,
As that wretch that never any thing had.
How mad is the damn'd money-monger,
That to purchase to him and his heirs,
Growes shrivled with thirst and hunger?
While we that are bonny,
Buy Sack for ready money,
And ne'r trouble Scriv'ners nor Lawyers.

Those Gulls that by scraping and toyling,
Have swell'd the Revenues so vast,
Get nothing by all their turmoyling,
But are marks for each tax,
While they load their own backs,
With the heavier packs,
And lie down gall'd and weary at last;
While we that do traffick in Tipple,
Can baffle, the gown and the sword,
Whose jawes are so hungry and gripple;
We ne'r trouble our heads,
With indentures or deeds,
But our Wills are compris'd in a word.

Our money shall never Indite us,
Nor drag us to Goldsmiths-hall;
Nor Pira's, nor storms can affright us:
We that have no estates,
Pay no taxes or rates,
But can sleep with open gates,
He that lies on the ground cannot fall:
We laugh at those fools, whose endeavours
Do but fit 'um for prisons or fines,
While we that spend all are the savers;
For if theeves do steal in,
They go out empty agin,
Nay the Plunderers lose their designs.

Then let's not take care for to morrow,
But tipple and laugh while we may,
To wash from our hearts all sorrow;
Those Cormorants which
Are troubled with an itch,
To be mighty and rich,
Do but toyle for the wealth which they borrow.
The Mayor of the Town with his ruff on,
What a pox is he better than we?
He must vail to the men with the buff on;
He Custard may eat,
And such luberly meat,
But we drink and are merrier than he.