Odes to BoozeThe Jovial Priest's Confession Walter de Mapes This 12th Century nobleman with too much time on his hands originally composed this poem in Latin; a bit pointless since hardly anyone could understand it, let alone read it. |
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I devise to end my days
in a tavern drinking, May some Christian hold for me the glass when I am shrinking. That the cherubim may cry when they see me sinking, God be merciful to a soul of this gentleman's way of thinking. A glass of wine amazingly enlighteneth one's intervals; 'Tis wings bedewed with nectar that fly up to supernals; Bottles cracked in taverns have much the sweeter kernels, Than the sups allowed to us in the college journals. Every one by nature hath a mould which he was cast in; I happen to be one of those who never could write fasting; By a single little boy I should be surpassed in Writing so: I'd just as lief be buried; tombed and grassed in. Every one by nature hath a gift too, a dotation: I, when I make verses do get the inspiration Of the very best of wine that comes into the nation: It maketh sermons to astound for edification. Just as liquor floeth good floweth forth my lay so; But I must moreover eat or I could not say so; Naught it availeth inwardly should I write all day so; But with God's grace after meat I beat Ovidius Naso. Neither is there given to me prophetic animation, Unless when I have eat and drank yea, even to saturation, Then in my upper story hath Bacchus domination And Phoebus rushes into me, and beggareth all relation. Result: Pompous verbosity.
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