Drink!—for, once dead, you never shall return.”
Neither would it do to postpone the pleasures of the wine,—time is fleeting, and every hour may be the last. Life has no space for resolutions or regrets. These only rob existence of a portion of the poor prizes that she stingily scatters into the ring to be fought and scrambled after by the crowd.
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling;
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing.
It is not the dainty sipping of the wine that our poet commends for the peace of the soul, but the giving up of self to the enjoyment of the hour,—the complete abandonment that forgets time and space and eternity, and knows only the moment that is.
Perplext no more with Human or Divine,
To-morrow’s tangle to the winds resign,
And lose your fingers in the tresses of