Fills a flagon.
Ah! how the streamlet laughs and sings! What a delicious fragrance springs From the deep flagon, while it fills, As of hyacinths and daffodils! Between this cask and the Abbot's lips Many have been the sips and slips; Many have been the draughts of wine, 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. 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!
He drinks.
O cordial delicious! O soother of pain! 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! And now a flagon for such as may ask A draught from the noble Bacharach cask, 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 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! Let me unloose this button of wood, And quiet a little his turbulent mood.
Sets it running.
See! how its currents gleam and shine, As if they had caught the purple hues Of autumn sunsets on the Rhine, 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! 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 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.
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, For he won thereby Dorf Huffelsheim. A jolly old toper! who at a pull Could drink a postilion's jack-boot full, And ask with a laugh, when that was done, If the fellow had left the other one! 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, Than of anything more refined and dear!
Fills the flagon and departs.