Fill the Goblet Again. A Song.

  1. 1Fill the goblet again! for I never before
  2. 2Felt the glow which now gladdens my heart to its core;
  3. 3Let us drink!--who would not?--since, through life's varied round,
  4. 4In the goblet alone no deception is found.
  1. 5I have tried in its turn all that life can supply;
  2. 6I have bask'd in the beam of a dark rolling eye;
  3. 7I have lov'd!--who has not?--but what heart can declare
  4. 8That Pleasure existed while Passion was there?
  1. 9In the days of my youth, when the heart's in its spring,
  2. 10And dreams that Affection can never take wing,
  3. 11I had friends!--who has not?--but what tongue will avow,
  4. 12That friends, rosy wine! are so faithful as thou?
  1. 13The heart of a mistress some boy may estrange,
  2. 14Friendship shifts with the sunbeam--thou never canst change;
  3. 15Thou grow'st old--who does not?--but on earth what appears,
  4. 16Whose virtues, like thine, still increase with its years?
  1. 17Yet if blest to the utmost that Love can bestow,
  2. 18Should a rival bow down to our idol below,
  3. 19We are jealous!--who's not?--thou hast no such alloy;
  4. 20For the more that enjoy thee, the more we enjoy.
  1. 21Then the season of youth and its vanities past,
  2. 22For refuge we fly to the goblet at last;
  3. 23There we find--do we not?--in the flow of the soul,
  4. 24That truth, as of yore, is confined to the bowl.
  1. 25When the box of Pandora was open'd on earth,
  2. 26And Misery's triumph commenc'd over Mirth,
  3. 27Hope was left,--was she not?--but the goblet we kiss,
  4. 28And care not for Hope, who are certain of bliss.
  1. 29Long life to the grape! for when summer is flown,
  2. 30The age of our nectar shall gladden our own:
  3. 31We must die--who shall not?--May our sins be forgiven,
  4. 32And Hebe shall never be idle in Heaven.