Classic and Contemporary Poetry
CATAWBA WINE, by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: This song of mine / is a song of the vine Last Line: On the banks of the beautiful river. Subject(s): Grapes | ||||||||
THIS song of mine Is a Song of the Vine, To be sung by the glowing embers Of wayside inns, When the rain begins To darken the drear Novembers. It is not a song Of the Scuppernong, From warm Carolinian valleys, Nor the Isabel And the Muscadel That bask in our garden alleys. Nor the red Mustang, Whose clusters hang O'er the waves of the Colorado, And the tiery flood Of whose purple blood Has a dash of Spanish bravado. For richest and best Is the wine of the West, That grows by the Beautiful River; Whose sweet perfume Fills all the room With a benison on the giver. And as hollow trees Are the haunts of bees, For ever going and coming; So this crystal hive Is all alive With a swarming and buzzing and humming. Very good in its way Is the Verzenay, Or the Sillery soft and creamy; But Catawba wine Has a taste more divine, More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy. There grows no vine By the haunted Rhine, By Danube or Guadalquivir, Nor on island or cape, That bears such a grape As grows by the Beautiful River, Drugged is their juice For foreign use, When shipped o'er the reeling Atlantic, To rack our brains With the fever pains, That have driven the Old World frantic. To the sewers and sinks With all such drinks, And after them tumble the mixer; For a poison malign Is such Borgia wine, Or at best but a Devil's Elixir. While pure as a spring Is the wine I sing, And to praise it, one needs but name it; For Catawba wine Has need of no sign, No tavern-bush to proclaim it. And this Song of the Vine, This greeting of mine, The winds and the birds shall deliver To the Queen of the West, In her garlands dressed, On the banks of the Beautiful River. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE GRAPE-VINE SWING by WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS TO A BUNCH OF GRAPES; RIPENING IN MY WINDOW by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES CLUSTERED GRAPES by HELEN BURWELL CHAPIN JONES ENLIGHTENED by ROWLAND EYLES EGERTON-WARBURTON GRAPES FROM THORNS by DOROTHY HOMANS SUGGESTED BY A BUNCH OF ENGLISH GRAPES by THOMAS HOOD FEAR by HAZEL COLLISTER HUTCHINSON BURGUNDY by GLADYS ADELINA LEWIS A BALLAD OF THE FRENCH FLEET; OCTOBER, 1746 by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW |
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