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(From The Golden Legend)
FRIAR CLAUS in the Convent cellar. I HAVE heard it said that at Easter-tide, | |
When buds are swelling on every side, | |
And the sap begins to move in the vine, | |
Then in all the cellars, far and wide, | |
The oldest, as well as the newest, wine | 5 |
Begins to stir itself, and ferment, | |
With a kind of revolt and discontent | |
At being so long in darkness pent, | |
And fain would burst from its sombre tun | |
To bask on the hillside in the sun; | 10 |
As in the bosom of us poor friars, | |
The tumult of half-subdued desires | |
For the world that we have left behind | |
Disturbs at times all peace of mind! | |
And now that we have lived through Lent, | 15 |
My duty it is, as often before, | |
To open awhile the prison-door, | |
And give these restless spirits vent. | |
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Now here is a cask that stands alone, | |
And has stood a hundred years or more, | 20 |
Its beard of cobwebs, long and hoar, | |
Trailing and sweeping along the floor, | |
Like Barbarossa, who sits in his cave, | |
Taciturn, sombre, sedate, and grave, | |
Till his beard has grown through the table of stone! | 25 |
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It is of the quick and not of the dead! | |
In its veins the blood is hot and red, | |
And a heart still beats in those ribs of oak | |
That time may have tamed, but has not broke! | |
It comes from Bacharach on the Rhine, | 30 |
Is one of the three best kinds of wine, | |
And costs some hundred florins the ohm; | |
But that I do not consider dear, | |
When I remember that every year | |
Four butts are sent to the Pope of Rome. | 35 |
And whenever a goblet thereof I drain, | |
The old rhyme keeps running in my brain: | |
At Bacharach on the Rhine, | |
At Hochheim on the Main, | |
And at Würzburg on the Stein, | 40 |
Grow the three best kinds of wine! | |
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They are all good wines, and better far | |
Than those of the Neckar or those of the Ahr. | |
In particular, Würzburg well may boast | |
Of its blessed wine of the Holy Ghost, | 45 |
Which of all wines I like the most. | |
This I shall draw for the Abbots drinking, | |
Who seems to be much of my way of thinking. | |
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Fills a flagon. Ah! how the streamlet laughs and sings! | |
What a delicious fragrance springs | 50 |
From the deep flagon, while it fills, | |
As of hyacinths and daffodils! | |
Between this cask and the Abbots lips | |
Many have been the sips and slips; | |
Many have been the draughts of wine, | 55 |
On their way to his, that have stopped at mine; | |
And many a time my soul has hankered | |
For a deep draught out of his silver tankard, | |
When it should have been busy with other affairs, | |
Less with its longings and more with its prayers. | 60 |
But now there is no such awkward condition, | |
No danger of death and eternal perdition; | |
So here s to the Abbot and Brothers all, | |
Who dwell in this convent of Peter and Paul! | |
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He drinks. O cordial delicious! O soother of pain! | 65 |
It flashes like sunshine into my brain! | |
A benison rest on the Bishop who sends | |
Such a fudder of wine as this to his friends! | |
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And now a flagon for such as may ask | |
A draught from the noble Bacharach cask, | 70 |
And I will be gone, though I know full well | |
The cellar s a cheerfuller place than the cell. | |
Behold where he stands, all sound and good, | |
Brown and old in his oaken hood; | |
Silent he seems externally | 75 |
As any Carthusian monk may be; | |
But within, what a spirit of deep unrest! | |
What a seething and simmering in his breast! | |
As if the heaving of his great heart | |
Would burst his belt of oak apart! | 80 |
Let me unloose this button of wood, | |
And quiet a little his turbulent mood. | |
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Sets it running. See! how its currents gleam and shine, | |
As if they had caught the purple hues | |
Of autumn sunsets on the Rhine, | 85 |
Descending and mingling with the dews; | |
Or as if the grapes were stained with the blood | |
Of the innocent boy, who, some years back, | |
Was taken and crucified by the Jews, | |
In that ancient town of Bacharach; | 90 |
Perdition upon those infidel Jews, | |
In that ancient town of Bacharach! | |
The beautiful town, that gives us wine | |
With the fragrant odor of Muscadine! | |
I should deem it wrong to let this pass | 95 |
Without first touching my lips to the glass, | |
For here in the midst of the current I stand, | |
Like the stone Pfalz in the midst of the river, | |
Taking toll upon either hand, | |
And much more grateful to the giver. | 100 |
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He drinks. Here, now, is a very inferior kind, | |
Such as in any town you may find, | |
Such as one might imagine would suit | |
The rascal who drank wine out of a boot. | |
And, after all, it was not a crime, | 105 |
For he won thereby Dorf Hüffelsheim. | |
A jolly old toper! who at a pull | |
Could drink a postilions jack-boot full, | |
And ask with a laugh, when that was done, | |
If the fellow had left the other one! | 110 |
This wine is as good as we can afford | |
To the friars, who sit at the lower board, | |
And cannot distinguish bad from good, | |
And are far better off than if they could, | |
Being rather the rude disciples of beer | 115 |
Than of anything more refined and dear! | |
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