There was an old decanter, and its mouth was gaping wide; the rosy wine had ebbed away and left its crystal side; and the wind went humming humming, up and down the sides it flew, and through the reed like hollow neck the wildest notes it blew. I placed it in the window where the blast was blowing free, and fancied that its pale mouth sang the queerest strains to me. "They tell me -- puny conquerors! the Plague has slain his ten, and War his hundred thousand of the very best of men; but I" -- 'twas thus the Bottle spake -- "but I have conquered more than all your famous conquerors, so feared and famed of yore. Then come, ye youths and maidens all, come drink from out my cup, the beverage that dulls the brain and burns the spirits up; that puts to shame your conquerors that slay their scores below; for this has deluged millions with the lava tide of woe. Tho' in the path of battle darkest waves of blood may roll; yet while I killed the body, I have damn'd the very soul. The cholera, the plagues, the sword, such ruin never wro't, as I, in mirth or malice, on the innocent have brought. And still I breathe upon them, and they shrink before my breath; and year by year my thousands tread the dismal road of Death." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SUN GOD by AUBREY THOMAS DE VERE RESURRECTION, IMPERFECT by JOHN DONNE THE AMERICAN FLAG by JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE SIXTY-EIGHTH BIRTHDAY by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL TO THE STATES. TO IDENTIFY THE 16TH, 17TH, OR 18TH PRESIDENTIAD by WALT WHITMAN THE COYOTE CHORUS by ANNE BIRDSALL A SUNRISE IN MARCH by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |