A Toast
See this bowl of purple wine,Life-blood of the lusty vine!All the warmth of summer sunsIn the vintage liquid runs,All the glow of winter nightsPlays about its jewel lights,Thoughts of time when love was youngLurk its ruby drops among,And its deepest depths are dyedWith delight of friendship tried.Worthy offering, I ween,For a god or for a queen,Is the draught I pour to thee,--Comfort of all misery,Single friend of the forlorn,Haven of all beings born,Hope when trouble wakes at night,And when naught delights, delight.Holy Death, I drink to thee;Do not part my friends and me.Take this gift, which for a nightPuts dull leaden care to flight,Thou who takest grief awayFor a night and for a day.
Words in this poem
- ween v. i.
- To think; to imagine; to fancy. [OE. wenen, AS. w, fr. w hope, expectation, opinion; akin to D. waan, OFries. w, OS. & OHG. wan, G. wahn delusion, Icel. van hope, expectation, Goth. w, and D. w]
- forlorn a.
- Deserted abandoned; lost. [OE., p.p. of forlesen to lose utterly, AS. forleósan (p.p. forloren); pref. for- + leósan (in comp.) to lose; cf. D. verliezen to lose, G. verlieren, Sw. förlor]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Toast is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #49721; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: George Santayana, A Toast, in Poems (1922), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #49721, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/santayana-poems/a-toast.html, id L21740.
Form and metre
A Toast is 24 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 92% of the lines. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in trochaic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABBCCDDEEFFG-HHIIGGIIJJ wineA · vineA · sunsB · runsB · nightsC · lightsC · youngD · amongD · dyedE · triedE · weenF · queenF · theeG · misery · forlornH · bornH · nightI · delightI · theeG · meG · nightI · flightI · awayJ · dayJ
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| See this bowl of purple wine, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Life-blood of the lusty vine! | 7 | ····/˘· |
| All the warmth of summer suns | 7 | ····/˘· |
| In the vintage liquid runs, | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| All the glow of winter nights | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Plays about its jewel lights, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Thoughts of time when love was young | 7 | ······· |
| Lurk its ruby drops among, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| And its deepest depths are dyed | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| With delight of friendship tried. | 7 | ·˘/·/˘· |
| Worthy offering, I ween, | 7 | /˘/˘˘·· |
| For a god or for a queen, | 7 | ······· |
| Is the draught I pour to thee,-- | 7 | ······· |
| Comfort of all misery, | 7 | /˘··/˘˘ |
| Single friend of the forlorn, | 7 | /˘···˘/ |
| Haven of all beings born, | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Hope when trouble wakes at night, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| And when naught delights, delight. | 7 | ···˘/˘/ |
| Holy Death, I drink to thee; | 7 | /˘····· |
| Do not part my friends and me. | 7 | ······· |
| Take this gift, which for a night | 7 | ······· |
| Puts dull leaden care to flight, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Thou who takest grief away | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| For a night and for a day. | 7 | ······· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.