Filled is the goblet to its brim;
Quickly the sparkling bubbles swim.
Filled are my eyes with silent tears
Slowly telling the sorrows of years
I unfold the thoughts like a pilgrim.
No rosy flowers, no meadows green,
Embrace the goblet’s radiant sheen.
The bubbles, like phantoms, grow and
Rise in the air, yet cannot withstand
The gleams of shine, and vanish unseen.
This goblet, plain, lucid and chaste,
Is filled with wine (your favored taste);
As the deep fountains of my heart
By strong spasms shattered apart,
The wine is all running to waste.
O, I pledge in this cup of grief
Brewed by Time, the beguiling thief:
For maddening quaffs of dewy wine
From the holy streams of Hippocrene,
In half-waking dreams I find relief!
* Nunc est bibendum (Latin): “Cheers!”;
literarily means “Now it’s time to drink”.
