'Tis a madness then to make
Thriving our employment,
And lucre love, for Lucres sake,
Since we've possession, not enjoyment;
Let the times run on their course,
For opposition makes them worse,
We ne'r shall better find 'um;
Let Grandees wealth and power engross,
And honour too, while we sit close,
And laugh and take our plenteous dose
Of Sack, and never mind 'um.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Let the Times Run on Their Course
Alexander Brome (1620-1666), Song XXXIV (The Reformation), stanza 11: