The night is waning—Good-night! Good-night!
—I promised Sue to be home by nine:
A sacred promise, though amber wine
Sparkles and laughs in the crystal bright,
But the hours fly by with an eerie flight
When friends grow mellow and glasses clink,
And I’ll venture not to the tempting brink
When the night is waning—Good-night! Good-night!
No, _not_ another—the hop and vine
May wilt and wither like western grass;
Oh, well, if I must—in a final glass
I will drink a toast to a girl divine,
I will drink a toast to this wife of mine,
A queen, enthroned in the hearts of men!
Eh! What’s that striking? It can’t be ten,
For I promised Sue to be home by nine.
Pshaw! Sue is tucked in the sheets, I guess,
And Towzer guards at my outer gate
With a sleepless eye and a fang-girt pate,
Cruel and callous and pitiless.
Then, what of a night the more or less?
Come, fill up the glasses from heel to brim!
Till daylight nears and the stars grow dim,
And the new day yawns from its drowsiness.
For lives are merry while hearts are true,
Though the sun may wink through the window pane
And she’ll say “Algernon! drunk again!”
With a limpid tear in her eyes of blue,
But I’ll stroke her hair of a flaxen hue,
And I’ll kiss her lips of a rosebud red
And, harness and all, I will flop to bed
And dream of the promise I made to Sue!