Malt does more than Milton can...

I have always loved A. E. Housman, in fact when I was about 10 years old, I memorized this poem and forced everyone I know to listen to it.  Obviously, not much has changed...

Terence, this is stupid stuff

by

A.E. Housman

  "Terence, this is stupid stuff:

 You eat your victuals fast enough;

 There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear,

 To see the rate you drink your beer.

 But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,

 It gives a chap the belly-ache.

 The cow, the old cow, she is dead;

 It sleeps well, the horned head:

 We poor lads, 'tis our turn now

 To hear such tunes as killed the cow.

 Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme

 Your friends to death before their time

 Moping melancholy mad:

 Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad."

  Why, if 'tis dancing you would be

 There's brisker pipes than poetry.

 Say, for what were hop-yards meant,

 Or why was Burton built on Trent?

 Oh, many a peer of England brews

 Livelier liquor than the Muse,

 And malt does more than Milton can

 To justify God's ways to man.

 Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink

 For fellows whom it hurts to think:

 Look into the pewter pot

 To see the world as the world's not.

 And faith, 'tis pleasant till 'tis past:

 The mischief is that 'twill not last.

 Oh I have been to Ludlow fair

 And left my necktie god knows where,

 And carried half-way home, or near,

 Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:

 Then the world seemed none so bad,

 And I myself a sterling lad;

 And down in lovely muck I've lain,

 Happy till I woke again.

 Then I saw the morning sky:

 Heigho, the tale was all a lie;

 The world, it was the old world yet,

 I was I, my things were wet,

 And nothing now remained to do

 But begin the game anew.

  Therefore, since the world has still

 Much good, but much less good than ill,

 And while the sun and moon endure

 Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,

 I'd face it as a wise man would,

 And train for ill and not for good.

 'Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale

 Is not so brisk a brew as ale:

 Out of a stem that scored the hand

 I wrung it in a weary land.

 But take it: if the smack is sour,

 The better for the embittered hour;

 It should do good to heart and head

 When your soul is in my soul's stead;

 And I will friend you, if I may,

 In the dark and cloudy day.

  There was a king reigned in the East:

 There, when kings will sit to feast,

 They get their fill before they think

 With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.

 He gathered all that springs to birth

 From the many-venomed earth;

 First a little, thence to more,

 He sampled all her killing store;

 And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,

 Sate the king when healths went round.

 They put arsenic in his meat

 And stared aghast to watch him eat;

 They poured strychnine in his cup

 And shook to see him drink it up:

 They shook, they stared as white's their shirt:

 Them it was their poison hurt

        - I tell the tale that I heard told.

 Mithridates, he died old.