Let the world slide, let the world go;

A fig for care, and a fig for woe!

If I can't pay, why I can owe,

And death makes equal the high and low.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Be Merry Friends.

It's guid to be merry and wise,

It's guid to be honest and true,

It's guid to support Caledonia's cause,

And bide by the buff and the blue.

Robert Burns (1759-1796): Here's a Health to Them that's Awa'.

'T is well to be merry and wise,

'T is well to be honest and true;

'T is well to be off with the old love

Before you are on with the new.

Lines used by Maturin as the motto to "Bertram," produced at Drury Lane, 1816.

There was a sound of revelry by night,

And Belgium's capital had gather'd then

Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright

The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men.

A thousand hearts beat happily; and when

Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again,

And all went merry as a marriage bell.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 21.

As merry as the day is long.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Much Ado about Nothing. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Three merry boys, and three merry boys,

And three merry boys are we,

As ever did sing in a hempen string

Under the gallows-tree.

John Fletcher (1576-1625): The Bloody Brother. Act iii. Sc. 2.

A very merry, dancing, drinking,

Laughing, quaffing, and unthinking time.

John Dryden (1631-1701): The Secular Masque. Line 40.

Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Comedy of Errors. Act iii. Sc. 1.

A merry heart goes all the day,

Your sad tires in a mile-a.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Winter's Tale. Act iv. Sc. 3.

I am not merry; but I do beguile

The thing I am, by seeming otherwise.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act ii. Sc. 1.

'T is merry in hall

Where beards wag all.

Thomas Tusser (Circa 1515-1580): Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. August's Abstract.

Primrose, first-born child of Ver,

Merry springtime's harbinger.

Beaumont And Fletcher: The Two Noble Kinsmen. Act i. Sc. 1.

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York,

And all the clouds that loured upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,

Our bruised arms hung up for monuments,

Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,

Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.

Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front;

And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds

To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,

He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber

To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,

Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;

I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty

To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;

I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,

Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,

Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time

Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,

And that so lamely and unfashionable

That dogs bark at me as I halt by them,—

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,

Have no delight to pass away the time,

Unless to spy my shadow in the sun.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 1.

A merry monarch, scandalous and poor.

Earl Of Rochester (1647-1680): On the King.

As it fell upon a day

In the merry month of May,

Sitting in a pleasant shade

Which a grove of myrtles made.

Richard Barnfield (1574-1620): Address to the Nightingale.

My merry, merry, merry roundelay

Concludes with Cupid's curse:

They that do change old love for new,

Pray gods, they change for worse!

George Peele (1552-1598): Cupid's Curse.

I am never merry when I hear sweet music.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act v. Sc. 1.