As coins because they shine 
Remain unspent, 
The golden-bodied wine 
Will first content 
The pure lust of the eye. 
Enough, if such rich lustre pay the sight 
With interest upon long vanished light. 
This pleasure as it pales 
Seems not so fine 
As what the glass exhales: 
Breath of the vine. 
Rare gust, be slow to die! 
We'll take it on the tongue: mixed with our breath 
The ghostly grape laughs jollily at death. 
The wine, though cool as snow, 
Being drunk, is fire. 
The taste transmutes the glow, 
Until desire 
Puts its long grieving by, 
Or finds some savor of sweetness in what's tart. 
Though wrung, the heart exults, the shuddering heart. 
The failure of delight 
That makes us rage, 
The treachery, the spite 
Of this fouled age, 
Wine's power can defy. 
The blood bounds in the vein, flesh unsubdued 
Forgets its pain, the soul forgets its solitude.