The Sampler Platter: A Little Bit of Everything

by Susan Skylark

  O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

  Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,

  Tasting of Flora and the country green,

  Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!

  O for a beaker full of the warm South,

  Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

  With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

  And purple-stained mouth;

  That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

  And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

  Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

  No hungry generations tread thee down;

  The voice I hear this passing night was heard

  In ancient days by emperor and clown:

  Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

  Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

  She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

  The same that oft-times hath

  Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam

  Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.