A Selection from the Lyrical Poems of Robert Herrick

27. THE WAKE

     Come, Anthea, let us two
     Go to feast, as others do:
     Tarts and custards, creams and cakes,
     Are the junkets still at wakes;
     Unto which the tribes resort,
     Where the business is the sport:
     Morris-dancers thou shalt see,
     Marian, too, in pageantry;
     And a mimic to devise
     Many grinning properties.
     Players there will be, and those
     Base in action as in clothes;
     Yet with strutting they will please
     The incurious villages.
     Near the dying of the day
     There will be a cudgel-play,
     Where a coxcomb will be broke,
     Ere a good word can be spoke:
     But the anger ends all here,
     Drench'd in ale, or drown'd in beer.
     —Happy rusticks!  best content
     With the cheapest merriment;
     And possess no other fear,
     Than to want the Wake next year.