English Poetry. William Dean Howells. If. Уильям Дин Хоуэллс.

William Dean Howells (Уильям Дин Хоуэллс)

If

Yes, death is at the bottom of the cup,
And every one that lives must drink it up;
And yet between the sparkle at the top
And the black lees where lurks the bitter drop,
There swims enough good liquor, Heaven knows,
To ease our hearts of all their other woes.

The bubbles rise in sunshine at the brim;
That drop below is very far and dim;
The quick fumes spread, and shape us such bright dreams
That in the glad delirium it seems
As though by some deft sleight, if so we willed,
That drop untasted might be somehow spilled.

William Dean Howells’s other poems:

1. Vision
2. The Song the Oriole Sings
3. In Earliest Spring
4. The Sarcastic Fair
5. By the Sea

Poems of other poets with the same name (Стихотворения других поэтов с таким же названием):

Rudyard Kipling (Редьярд Киплинг) If (“If you can keep your head when all about you”)

1015

To the dedicated English version of this website

---