Nos habebit, nos habebit, nos habebit tumulus!”
There is, however, more reason, and healthy sentiment, and pure principle, in such lines as the following,—extracted from Walter Savage Landor’s “Last Fruit off an Old Tree,”—than in reams of such fiery invocations to quaff deeply as those cited above. Hear the old man:—
“The chrysolites and rubies Bacchus brings,
To crown the feast where swells the broad-vein’d brow,
Where maidens blush at what the minstrel sings,
They who have courted, may court now.
“Bring me a cool alcove, the grape uncrush’d,
The peach of pulpy cheek and down mature;
Where ev’ry voice, but bird’s or child’s, is husht,
And ev’ry thought, like the brook nigh, runs pure.”