I. <br /> <br />My heart sank with our Claret-flask, <br /> Just now, beneath the heavy sedges <br />That serve this Pond's black face for mask <br /> And still at yonder broken edges <br />O' the hole, where up the bubbles glisten, <br />After my heart I look and listen. <br /> <br /> II. <br /> <br />Our laughing little flask, compelled <br /> Thro' depth to depth more bleak and shady; <br />As when, both arms beside her held, <br /> Feet straightened out, some gay French lady <br />Is caught up from life's light and motion, <br />And dropped into death's silent ocean! <br /> <br /> --- <br /> <br />Up jumped Tokay on our table, <br />Like a pygmy castle-warder, <br />Dwarfish to see, but stout and able, <br />Arms and accoutrements all in order; <br />And fierce he looked North, then, wheeling South, <br />Blew with his bugle a challenge to Drouth, <br />Cocked his flap-hat with the tosspot-feather, <br />Twisted his thumb in his red moustache, <br />Jingled his huge brass spurs together, <br />Tightened his waist with its Buda sash, <br />And then, with an impudence nought could abash, <br />Shrugged his hump-shoulder, to tell the beholder, <br />For twenty such knaves he should laugh but the bolder: <br />And so, with his sword-hilt gallantly jutting, <br />And dexter-hand on his haunch abutting, <br />Went the little man, Sir Ausbruch, strutting! <br /> <br /> --- <br /> <br />Here's to Nelson's memory! <br />'Tis the second time that I, at sea, <br />Right off Cape Trafalgar here, <br />Have drunk it deep in British Beer. <br />Nelson for ever---any time <br />Am I his to command in prose or rhyme! <br />Give me of Nelson only a touch, <br />And I save it, be it little or much: <br />Here's one our Captain gives, and so <br />Down at the word, by George, shall it go! <br />He says that at Greenwich they point the beholder <br />To Nelson's coat, ``still with tar on the shoulder: <br />``For he used to lean with one shoulder digging, <br />``Jigging, as it were, and zig-zag-zigging <br />``Up against the mizen-rigging!''<br /><br />Robert Browning<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/nationality-in-drinks/
