Old books to read! Ay, bring those nodes of wit, The same my sire scanned before, Of Oxford's domes: Old Homer blind, Old Horace, rake Anacreon, by Quaint Burton, quainter Spenser, ay! Nor leave behind The Holye Book by which we live and die. Old friends to talk!— Ay, bring those chosen few, The wise, the courtly, and the true, Him for my wine, him for my stud, Bring Walter good: With soulful Fred; and learned Will, And thee, my alter ego (dearer still For every mood). These add a bouquet to my wine! These add a sparkle to my pine! If these I tine, Can books, or fire, or wine be good? ROBERT HINCKLEY MESSINGER. Wreathe the Bowl. WREATHE the bowl With flowers of soul, The brightest wit can find us; We'll take a flight Towards heaven to-night, And leave dull earth behind us! Should Love amid The wreaths be hid That Joy, the enchanter, brings us, Say, why did Time Fill up with sands unsightly, When wine he knew Runs brisker through, And sparkles far more brightly? And, smiling thus, The glass in two we'd sever, In double tide, And fill both ends for ever! Then wreathe the bowl With flowers of soul, The brightest wit can find us; We'll take a flight Towards heaven to-night, And leave dull earth behind us! THOMAS MOORE. FILL THE BUMPER FAIR. 173 Sparkling and Bright. SPARKLING and bright in liquid light, Does the wine our goblets gleam in; Which a bee would choose to dream in. To loves as gay and fleeting As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, And break on the lips while meeting. Oh! if Mirth might arrest the flight Of Time through Life's dominions, We here a while would now beguile To drink to-night, with hearts as light, As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, But since Delight can't tempt the wight, Nor Love himself can hold the elf, Nor sober Friendship stay him, We'll drink to-night, with hearts as light, As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, Champagne Rosé. LILY on liquid roses floating So floats yon foam o'er pink champagne. Fain would I join such pleasant boating, And prove that ruby main, And float away on wine! Those seas are dangerous, graybeards swear, So we but float on wine! And true it is they cross in pain, Who sober cross the Stygian ferry; But only make our Styx champagne, And we shall cross right merry, Floating away in wine! Old Charon's self shall make him mellow, JOHN KENYON. Fill the Bumper fair. FILL the bumper fair! Every drop we sprinkle O'er the brow of care Smooths away a wrinkle. Wit's electric flame Ne'er so swiftly passes As when through the frame It shoots from brimming glasses. Fill the bumper fair; Every drop we sprinkle O'er the brow of care Smooths away a wrinkle. Sages can, they say, Grasp the lightning's pinions, And bring down its ray From the starred dominions:So we, sages, sit, And, 'mid bumpers bright'ning, From the heaven of wit Draw down all its lightning. Wouldst thou know what first For wine's celestial spirit? When, as bards inform us, Prometheus stole away The living fires that warm us: The careless youth, when up To Glory's fount aspiring, Took nor urn nor cup To hide the pilfered fire in. But oh his joy, when, round The halls of heaven spying, Among the stars, he found A bowl of Bacchus lying! Some drops were in that bowl, O'er that flame within us. Every drop we sprinkle O'er the brow of care Smooths away a wrinkle. THOMAS MOORE. And doth not a Meeting like this. AND doth not a meeting like this make amends For all the long years I've been wand'ring away To see thus around me my youth's early friends, As smiling and kind as in that happy day? Though haply o'er some of your brows, as o'er mine, The snow-fall of Time may be stealing-what then? Like Alps in the sunset, thus lighted by wine, We'll wear the gay tinge of Youth's roses again. What softened remembrances come o'er the heart, In gazing on those we've been lost to so long! The sorrows, the joys, of which once they were part, Still round them, like visions of yesterday, throng; As letters some hand hath invisibly traced, When held to the flame will steal out on the sight, So many a feeling, that long seemed effaced, The warmth of a moment like this brings to light. And thus, as in memory's bark we shall glide, That once made a garden of all the gay shore, Deceived for a moment, we'll think them still ours, And breathe the fresh air of life's morning once more. How Stands the Glass Around ? How stands the glass around? The trumpets sound; The colors they are flying, boys. To fight, kill, or wound, May we still be found Why, soldiers, why Should we be melancholy, boys! Whose business 'tis to die? Don't fear, drink on, be jolly, boys! Cold, hot, wet or dry, |