Drinking Wine

" Plus sitiunt plus bibunt."
POUR the mingled cream and amber!
Let me drain the bowl again!
Such hilarious visions clamber
Through the chambers of my brain.
Quaintest jests and queerest fancies
Spring to life and fade away:
What care I how time advances?
I am drinking wine to-day.
Here's a motto terse and sentient,
By it I will live and die!
Words of some rare tippling ancient,
"Ever drunken, ever dry."
Fill again! let bubbles blind me!
Sorrow, hide thy face away!
Satan, get thee hence behind me,
I am drinking wine to-day.
Cease thy prate of worldly glory,
Cease thy prate of worldly gold!
I have heard that pleasant story
Till it sounds a little old.
Let me drop such low ambitions;
Glory gnaws the heart away;
Gold demands too stern conditions,
I am drinking wine to-day.
One more bowl - a goodly measure
Ere my merry mood be gone!
Wine's a feast of perfect pleasure,
Feast without a skeleton.
Love is false, and hope is waning;
Life a failure is alway!
Wine's the only good remaining,
Let me drain its lees to-day.