Verses and Translations by Charles Stuart Calverley
page 35 of 111 (31%)
page 35 of 111 (31%)
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Misguided sons that "the best drink was water."
How would he now recant that wild opinion, And sing--as would that I could sing--of you! I was not born (alas!) the "Muses' minion," I'm not poetical, not even blue: And he (we know) but strives with waxen pinion, Whoe'er he is that entertains the view Of emulating Pindar, and will be Sponsor at last to some now nameless sea. Oh! when the green slopes of Arcadia burned With all the lustre of the dying day, And on Cithaeron's brow the reaper turned, (Humming, of course, in his delightful way, How Lycidas was dead, and how concerned The Nymphs were when they saw his lifeless clay; And how rock told to rock the dreadful story That poor young Lycidas was gone to glory:) What would that lone and labouring soul have given, At that soft moment, for a pewter pot! How had the mists that dimmed his eye been riven, And Lycidas and sorrow all forgot! If his own grandmother had died unshriven, In two short seconds he'd have recked it not; Such power hath Beer. The heart which Grief hath canker'd Hath one unfailing remedy--the Tankard. Coffee is good, and so no doubt is cocoa; |
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