Although wine when it is read somewhat lacks the savour of wine when it is drunk, wine remains a very pleasant thing both to read about and to chat about.
I was sitting on my own in a restaurant, when I saw a beautiful woman at another table. I sent her a bottle of the most expensive wine on the menu. She sent me a note:
"I will not touch a drop of this wine unless you can assure me that you have seven inches in your pants." So I wrote back: "Give me the wine. As gorgeous as you are, I'm not cutting off three inches for anyone.
APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom. The flabby wine-skin of his brain Yields to some pathologic strain, And voids from its unstored abysm The driblet of an aphorism. "The Mad Philosopher," 1697
even
The bed of love, that in the imagination
Had seemed to be the giver of all peace,
Is no more than a wine-cup in the tasting,
And as soon finished.
A good sherris-sack hath a twofold operation in it. It
ascends me into the brain,... makes it apprehensive, quick,
forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes.
O madness to think use of strongest wines And strongest drinks our chief support of health, When God with these forbidden made choice to rear His mighty champion, strong above compare, Whose drink was only from the liquid brook.
Milton says, that the lyric poet may drink wine and live generously, but the epic poet, he who shall sing of the gods, and their descent unto men, must drink water out of a wooden bowl. For poetry is not "Devil's wine," but God's wine.