Charles Baudelaire
Born in Paris in 1821, he died in the same city in 1867. Charles Baudelaire killed the game of French poetry. He is definitely the most beautiful poet on wine. Specially The soul of Wine.
The Soul of Wine
One evening, the soul of wine sung from within the bottles:
” Man, towards you I push, oh disinherited dear one,
Under my glass prison and my vermilion polishes,
A song replete of light and of fraternity !
I know how much it takes, on the flaming hill,
Of suffering, of sweat, and of stinging Sun
To engender my life and to give me the soul ;
But I will not be ungrateful nor malignant,
Because I experience an immense joy when I fall
Into the throat of a man worn by his works,
And his hot chest is a sweet sepulcher
Where I am pleased much better than in my cold vaults.
Do you hear the Sunday tunes ring out
And the hope that chirrups in my pounding breast?
The elbows on the table and rolling up your sleeves,
You will glorify me and you shall be satisfied ;
I will illuminate the eyes of your delighted woman ;
To your son I will return his strength and his colors
And I will be for that frail athlete of life
The oil that strengthens the muscles of the fighters.
In you I shall fall, vegetable of ambrosia,
Precious grain tossed by the eternal Sower,
So that from our love poetry shall be born
Which shall gush forth towards God like a rare flower !
Omar Khayyâm
Omar Khayyām, born in 1048 in Nichapur (now Iran) and died in 1131, is a Persian poet, mathematician, philosopher and astronomer. He wrote the most beautiful poems about wine.
Let’s drink, because the sky greedy for your loss and mine
Nurture a treacherous design against your life and mine
Among the young greenery let us taste the fiery wine:
The grass will grow long on your ashes and mine
Li Po
Li Po, born in 701 and died in 762, is one of the greatest Chinese poets of the Tang Dynasty. A banished from heaven condemned to live on earth whose poems are soaked in wine…
Drinking Alone by Moonlight
A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;
I drink alone, for no friend is near.
Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,
For he, with my shadow, will make three men.
The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;
Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side.
Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave
I must make merry before the Spring is spent.
To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;
In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks.
While we were sober, three shared the fun;
Now we are drunk, each goes his way.
May we long share our odd, inanimate feast,
And meet at last on the Cloudy River of the sky.
Paul Verlaine
Paul Verlaine is a French writer and poet born in Metz (Moselle) on March 30, 1844 and died in Paris on January 8, 1896. Rimbaud’s lover, when he is not trigger-happy… he writes magnificent texts on the vine and the wine.
Harvest
The things that sing in the head
When memory’s absent.
Listen, it’s the singing of our blood. . .
Such distant music, so discreet.
Listen, it’s the crying of our blood
When our soul’s taken flight,
A voice unheard before,
Soon to go quiet.
Blood-brother of rosy vines
Brother of the black vein’s wine,
Apotheosis of blood and wine!
Sing, cry. Send memory packing,
See off the soul. Let’s hypnotize
Our poor bones into nothingness.
Abû-Nuwâs
Born between 747 and 762 in Ahvaz (current Iran) and died around 815 in Baghdad (Iraq), Abû-Nuwâs is a Persian poet of Arabic expression, drunkard, pederast, libertine, also known for his witticisms and his jokes, as well as for his verses on wine.
Tell me: “Here is some wine!” », pouring me a drink.
But above all, have to be in public and notorious.
It is only on an empty stomach that I feel I am wrong.
I only won by being dead drunk.
Proclaim aloud the name of the one you love,
because there is no good in hidden pleasures
