Brothers, {205}spare awhile your liquor, lay your final tumbler
down;
He has dropped--that star of honour--on the field of his
renown!
Raise the wail, but raise it softly, lowly bending on your
knees,
If you find it more convenient, you may hiccup if you
please.
Sons of Pantagruel, gently let your hip-hurrahing sink,
Be your manly accents clouded, half with sorrow, half
with drink!
Lightly to the sofa pillow lift his head from off the floor;
See, how calm he sleeps, unconscious as the deadest nail
in door!
Widely o'er the earth I've wandered; where the drink
most freely flowed,
I have ever reeled the foremost, foremost to the beaker
strode.
Deep in shady Cider Cellars I have dreamed o'er heavy wet,
By the fountains of Damascus I have quaffed the rich
sherbet,
Regal {206}Montepulciano drained beneath its native rock,
On Johannis' sunny mountain frequent hiccuped o'er my
hock;
I have bathed in butts of Xeres deeper than did e'er
Monsoon,
Sangaree'd with bearded Tartars in the Mountains of the
Moon;
In beer-swilling Copenhagen I have drunk your Danesman
blind,
I have kept my feet in Jena, when each bursch to earth
declined;
Glass for glass, in fierce Jamaica, I have shared the plant-
er's rum,
Drunk with Highland dhuiné-wassails, till each gibbering
Gael grew dumb;
But a stouter, bolder drinker--one that loved his liquor
more--
Never yet did I encounter than our friend upon the floor!
Yet the best of us are mortal, we to weakness all are
heir,
He has fallen who rarely staggered--let the rest of us
beware!
We shall leave him as we found him,--lying where his
manhood fell,
'Mong the trophies of the revel, for he took his tipple well.
Better 'twere we loosed his neckcloth, laid his throat and
bosom bare,
Pulled his {207}Hobies off, and turned his toes to taste the
breezy air.
Throw the sofa-cover o'er him, dim the flaring of the gas,
Calmly, calmly let him slumber, and, as by the bar we
pass,
We shall bid that thoughtful waiter place beside him, near
and handy,
Large supplies of soda-water, tumblers bottomed well with
brandy,
So, when waking, he shall drain them, with that deathless
thirst of his,--
Clinging to the hand that smote him, like a good 'un as
he is!