Logic by ‘Anon’ from The Faber Book of Useful Verse, edited by Simon Brett, 1981, p. 127.
Good wine maketh good blood.
Good blood maketh good humours.
Good humours maketh good thoughts.
Good thoughts bring forth good works.
Good works carry a man to heaven.
Ergo. Good wine carrieth a man to heaven.
For wine to make good blood, or even bad,
requires a highly fictive evolution.
And humours, unless the poet ‘Anon’ means fluids,
are not the same as blood in any way.
That humours might engender benign works
is so far figurative that it has no meaning,
for all of history teaches that good thoughts
result in nothing often, or in works
as often bad as good, so how can this,
this homily from ‘Anon,’ be any proof
there even is a heaven, much less one
to which a man gets carried if he drinks?
If all be true that I do think,
There are five reasons we should drink:
Good wine, a friend, or being dry,
Or lest we should be by and by,
Or any other reason why.
Henry Aldrich (1647-1710)
Oh, I do like this one Henry! To you, Henry Massey, and to Henry Aldrich, cheers!