Classic Poem

Brothers, 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 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 planter'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 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!