Song XXXVII. Against Corrupted Sack

SACK! once my comfort and my dear delight,
Dull mortals quickning spirit;
Thou didst once give affections, wit, and might;
Thou mad'st the Lover, and the Wight;
Thou mad'st one dye, and t'other fight;
Thou mad'st the Poet, who made both; and thou
Inspir'dst our brains with gnial fire till now,
Th' hast justly lost thy honour,
'Cause th'hast lost thy power and merit.

Now we depose thee from th'usurped throne,
Since thou'rt degenerate and disloyal;
Thou hast no proper father of thine own,
But art bastard got by th' Town,
By Aequivke generation,
Thy Bawds, the Vintners do compound thee more,
Then Flavel or Besse Beer ere drugg'd a whore;
Nor canst thou now inspire, nor eed,
Nor cherish; but destroy all.

Oh where's that sprightly Poetry and Wit,
That should endure for ever?
Had Homer drank thy mixture, he had writ
Lines that would make the Reader spit;
Nor beyond puns would Pindar get;
Virgil and Horace, if inspir'd by thee,
Had writ but lewd and pagan poetry;
Dull dropsi'd lines, or else as dry and raging as a Feaver.

Treasons committed and contriv'd by thee,
Kingdoms and Kings subverted;
'Tis thou makest Rulers fools and cowards bee,
And such as ought to bend the Knee,
Madly invade the Soveraignty;
Thou throw'st us on all actions, vie and fell,
First mak'st us do, and then thou mak'st us tell;
And whom we swore to serve,
By thee we asely have deserted

Thou plague of bodies and th' unnatural Nurse,
Of Sickness and Physitians;
Raine of wit, and strength, and fame, and purse,
That hast destroy'd poor mortals worse
Then the great plague, or Mrosh curse.
In fifty nine th' hast spilt more English bloud
Then e'r in eighty eight the Spaniard could
By his Armado, or can since destroy
By's Inquisitions.

Hence from my veins, from my desires be gone;
I loath thee and defie thee;
I'll now find out a purer Helicon,
Which wits may safely feast upon,
And baffle thy hobgoblin Don;
And live to see thee and thy mungrel race,
Contemn'd and rooted out of every place;
And those thou'st fool'd and wrong'd like me,
For ever ever fly thee.