“Full sweet of a truth is the sparkle of wine”

FULL sweet of a truth is the sparkle of wine,

But sorely we miss this blessing divine,

And how can we waken a song or a laugh

When we find that we simply have nothing to quaff

But water, mere water?

The banquet has little contentment to bring,

Bears little incitement to joke or to sing,

When the potions we hoped to our future would

Turn out in the end to be nothing at all,

But water, yes water.

III

Good Moses of old caused the waters to flee,

And led all his people dryshod o’er the sea;

But Moses, our host, at the precedent frowns,

And us, his poor guests, he unflinchingly drowns

In water, cold water.

We sit round the table like cold-blooded frogs,

Who live out their lives in the watery bogs;

Well,— if we have fallen on watery days,

Let us, too, like them, croak a pæan in praise

Of water, dear water.

Long, long may our host here with main and with might

By night and by day for his temperance fight,

And may he and his line find it writ in the law

That their business in life will be ever to draw

Water, pure water.