When on one side the grape-juice is dancing,
While on t'other a blue eye beams, boy, beams,
'Tis enough, 'twixt the wine and the glancing,
To disturb even a saint from his dreams.
Yet, tho' life like a river is flowing,
I care not how fast it goes on, boy, on,
So the grape on its bank is still growing,
And Love lights the waves as they run.
WHERE SHALL WE BURY OUR SHAME?
(NEAPOLITAN AIR.)
Where shall we bury our shame?
Where, in what desolate place,
Hide the last wreck of a name
Broken and stained by disgrace?
Death may dissever the chain,
Oppression will cease when we're gone;
But the dishonor, the stain,
Die as we may, will live on.
Was it for this we sent out
Liberty's cry from our shore?
Was it for this that her shout
Thrilled to the world's very core?
Thus to live cowards and slaves!—
Oh, ye free hearts that lie dead,
Do you not, even in your graves,
Shudder, as o'er you we tread?
NE'ER TALK OF WISDOM'S GLOOMY SCHOOLS.
(MAHRATTA AIR.)
Ne'er talk of Wisdom's gloomy schools;
Give me the sage who's able
To draw his moral thoughts and rules
From the study of the table;—
Who learns how lightly, fleetly pass
This world and all that's in it.
From the bumper that but crowns his glass,
And is gone again next minute!
The diamond sleeps within the mine,
The pearl beneath the water;
While Truth, more precious, dwells in wine.
The grape's own rosy daughter.
And none can prize her charms like him,
Oh, none like him obtain her,
Who thus can, like Leander, swim
Thro' sparkling floods to gain her!