Catawba Wine by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Lyrics

                This song of mine
                  Is a Song of the Vine,
        To be sung by the glowing embers
                  Of wayside inns,
                  When the rain begins
        To darken the drear Novembers.

                  It is not a song
                  Of the Scuppernong,
        From warm Carolinian valleys,
                  Nor the Isabel
                  And the Muscadel
        That bask in our garden alleys.

                  Nor the red Mustang,
                  Whose clusters hang
        O'er the waves of the Colorado,
                  And the fiery flood
                  Of whose purple blood
        Has a dash of Spanish bravado.
                  For richest and best
                  Is the wine of the West,
        That grows by the Beautiful River;
                  Whose sweet perfume
                  Fills all the room
        With a benison on the giver.

                  And as hollow trees
                  Are the haunts of bees,
        For ever going and coming;
                  So this crystal hive
                  Is all alive
        With a swarming and buzzing and humming.

                  Very good in its way
                  Is the Verzenay,
        Or the Sillery soft and creamy;
                  But Catawba wine
                  Has a taste more divine,
        More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy.

                  There grows no vine
                  By the haunted Rhine,
        By Danube or Guadalquivir,
                  Nor on island or cape,
                  That bears such a grape
        As grows by the Beautiful River.
                  Drugged is their juice
                  For foreign use,
        When shipped o'er the reeling Atlantic,
                  To rack our brains
                  With the fever pains,
        That have driven the Old World frantic.

                  To the sewers and sinks
                  With all such drinks,
        And after them tumble the mixer;
                  For a poison malign
                  Is such Borgia wine,
        Or at best but a Devil's Elixir.

                  While pure as a spring
                  Is the wine I sing,
        And to praise it, one needs but name it;
                  For Catawba wine
                  Has need of no sign,
        No tavern-bush to proclaim it.

                  And this Song of the Vine,
                  This greeting of mine,
        The winds and the birds shall deliver
                  To the Queen of the West,
                  In her garlands dressed,
        On the banks of the Beautiful River.