Champagne Rosé!
Lily on liquid roses floating--
So floats yon foam o'er pink champagne--
Fain would I join such pleasant boating,
And prove that ruby main,
And float away on wine!
Those seas are dangerous, grabeards swear--
Whose sea-beach is the goblet's brim;
And true it is they down old Care--
But what care we for him,
So we but float on wine!
And tru it is they cross in pain,
Who sober cross the Stygian ferry;
But only make our Styx champagne,
And we shall cross right merry,
Floating away in wine!
Old Charon's self shall make him mellow,
then gayly row his boat from shore;
While we, and every jovial fellow,
Hear, unconcerned, the oar,
That dips itself in wine!
John Kenyon
{from The Household Book of Poetry, selected and edited by Charles A. Dana ... crumbling and falling apart as it is, still offering up gems!}
