The Wine Of Song.
By Charles Sangster
Within Fancy's Halls I sit, and quaff
Rich draughts of the Wine of Song,
And I drink, and drink,
To the very brink
Of delirium wild and strong,
Till I lose all sense of the outer world,
And see not the human throng.
The lyral chords of each rising thought
Are swept by a hand unseen;
And I glide, and glide,
With my music bride,
Where few spiritless souls have been;
And I soar afar on wings of sound,
With my fair AEolian Queen.
Deep, deeper still, from the springs of Thought
I quaff, till the fount is dry;
And I climb, and climb,
To a height sublime,
Up the stars of some lyric sky,
Where I seem to rise upon airs that melt
Into song as they pass by.
Millennial rounds of bliss I live,
Withdrawn from my cumbrous clay,
As I sweep, and sweep,
Through infinite deep
On deep of that starry spray;
Myself a sound on its world-wide round,
A tone on its spheral way.
And wheresoe'er through the wondrous space
My soul wings its noiseless flight,
On their astral rounds
Float divinest sounds,
Unseen, save by spirit-sight,
Obeying some wise, eternal law,
As fixed as the law of light.
But, oh, when my cup of dainty bliss
Is drained of the Wine of Song,
How I fall, and fall,
At the sober call
Of the body, that waiteth long
To hurry me back to its cares terrene,
And earth's spiritless human throng.