I have heard it said, that at Easter-tide,
When buds are swelling on every side,
And the sap begins to move in the vine. 
Then in all the cellars, far and wide,
The oldest, as well as the newest, wine
Begins to stir itself, and ferment,
With a kind of revolt and discontent
At being so long in darkness pent,
And fain would burst from its sombre tun
To bask on the hillside in the sun;
As in the bosom of us poor friars,
The tumult of half-subdued desires
For the world that we have left behind
Disturbs at times all peace of mind! 
And now that we have lived through Lent,
My duty it is, as often before,
To open awhile the prison-door,
And give these restless spirits vent.

Now here is a cask that stands alone,
And has stood a hundred years or more,
Its beard of cobwebs, long and hoar,
Trailing and sweeping along the floor,
Like Barbarossa, who sits in his cave,
Taciturn, sombre, sedate, and grave,
Till his beard has grown through the table of stone! 
It is of the quick and not of the dead! 
In its veins the blood is hot and red,
And a heart still beats in those ribs of oak
That time may have tamed, but has not broke;
It comes from Bacharach on the Rhine,
Is one of the three best kinds of wine,
And costs some hundred florins the ohm;
But that I do not consider dear,
When I remember that every year
Four butts are sent to the Pope of Rome. 
And whenever a goblet thereof I drain,
The old rhyme keeps running in my brain: 

    At Bacharach on the Rhine,
    At Hochheim on the Main,
    And at Wuerzburg on the Stein,
    Grow the three best kinds of wine!

They are all good wines, and better far
Than those of the Neckar, or those of the Ahr
In particular, Wuerzburg well may boast
Of its blessed wine of the Holy Ghost,
Which of all wines I like the most. 
This I shall draw for the Abbot’s drinking,
Who seems to be much of my way of thinking.

          (Fills a flagon.)

Ah! how the streamlet laughs and sings! 
What a delicious fragrance springs
From the deep flagon, while it fills,
As of hyacinths and daffodils! 
Between this cask and the Abbot’s lips
Many have been the sips and slips;
Many have been the draughts of wine,
On their way to his, that have stopped at mine;
And many a time my soul has hankered
For a deep draught out of his silver tankard,
When it should have been busy with other affairs,
Less with its longings and more with its prayers. 
But now there is no such awkward condition,
No danger of death and eternal perdition;
So here’s to the Abbot and Brothers all,
Who dwell in this convent of Peter and Paul!

          (He drinks.)

O cordial delicious!  O soother of pain! 
It flashes like sunshine into my brain! 
A benison rest on the Bishop who sends
Such a fudder of wine as this to his friends!