O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou has no name to be known by, let us call thee devil....O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance revel and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!
What wonders does not wine! It discloses secrets; ratifies and confirms our hopes; thrusts the coward forth to battle; eases the anxious mind of its burden; instructs in arts. Whom has not a cheerful glass made eloquent! Whom not quite free and easy from pinching poverty!
BIRTH, n. The first and direst of all disasters. As to the nature of it there appears to be no uniformity. Castor and Pollux were born from the egg. Pallas came out of a skull. Galatea was once a block of stone. Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he grew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water. It is known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a stroke of lightning. Leucomedon was the son of a cavern in Mount Etna, and I have myself seen a man come out of a wine cellar.
I drank a bottle of wine for company. It was Chateau Margaux. It was pleasant to be drinking slowly and to be tasting the wine and to be drinking alone. A bottle of wine was good company.
I had been hungry all the years- My noon had come, to dine- I, trembling, drew the table near And touched the curious wine. 'Twas this on tables I had seen When turning, hungry, lone, I looked in windows, for the wealth I could not hope to own. I did not know the ample bread, 'Twas so unlike the crumb The birds and I had often shared In Nature's diningroom. The plenty hurt me, 'twas so new,-- Myself felt ill and odd, As berry of a mountain bush Transplanted to the road. Nor was I hungry; so I found That hunger was a way Of persons outside windows, The entering takes away.
I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I see not beyond death. Let me live while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. I know this: if life is an illusion, then I am no less than an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.