Ode For A Social Meeting With Slight Alterations By A Teetotaler

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Title:     Ode For A Social Meeting With Slight Alterations By A Teetotaler
Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes [More Titles by Holmes]

WITH SLIGHT ALTERATIONS BY A TEETOTALER--(...)

COME! fill a fresh bumper, for why should we go
While the nectar (logwood) still reddens our cups as they flow?
Pour out the rich juices (decoction) still bright with the sun,
Till o'er the brimmed crystal the rubies (dye-stuff) shall run.

The purple-globed clusters (half-ripened apples) their life-dews have bled;
How sweet is the breath (taste) of the fragrance they shed!(sugar of lead)
For summer's last roses (rank poisons) lie hid in the wines (wines!!!)
That were garnered by maidens who laughed through the vines (stable-boys smoking long-nines)

Then a smile (scowl) and a glass (howl) and a toast (scoff) and a cheer (sneer);
For all the good wine, and we 've some of it here! (strychnine and whiskey, and ratsbane and beer!)
In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall,
Long live the gay servant that laughs for us all! (Down, down with the tyrant that masters us all!)

[The end]
Oliver Wendell Holmes's poem: Ode For A Social Meeting With Slight Alterations By A Teetotaler

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