Thou eternal drop of paradise!
Thy wick of love in snowy eyes
Has lit the coals of restless time,
Again alit the poet's rhyme
Which grows amidst the winter tide
Lest all asleep with morning's bride,
And yet the quill shall never die
And passion's juice will never dry,
For man was made for mellow pleasure
To drink to Bacchus and his treasure.
Thou joyous trickle of delight!
Lurid friend of the sparkling night,
Thy gleam befriends foregoing scars
And echoes aglow the distant stars,
As longing lips assail the tears
Of Aegir's sweetened blend in years
And parched the throat undone by speech
Will breach the reason bound by reach,
And then the warm vaporous rays
And mankind through her Maker's gaze.
Thou fountain of unravished grace!
A flagon lent Beauty a face,
And art will dwell forever more
Where genteel meets the jagged shore,
Frolics adrift the fluent brew
Every violet Baudelaire grew,
And nestles along the golden bay
The voice of a lost Hemingway.
What joy, what bliss, what cheer, what