Rose & Liquor : Settlement

Tread through populous and noisy clubs and bars

Where roisterers do dance in wild design

I seek no pardon for my ancient sins

But find my shrift within the bottled wine

The citterns wail and heavy benches creak

While giddy youth pursues a fleeting face

No words of softness do I deign to speak

Within this loud and labyrinthine place

I hoard my coin with a miser’s hand

No longer spent on coy and cruel maids

Whose love is written in the shifting sand

And vanishes within the evening shades

Why should I waste my substance on a lie

Or buy a gaud to deck a traitor's breast?

I’d rather watch the shining hours fly

With whiskey as my fixed and faithful guest

I work with sinew and with sweating brow

To earn the pittance that the bottle craves

I make to bacchus my eternal vow

Far from the tempest of the ocean waves

For labor spent for love is labor lost

A bankrupt venture in a stormy sea

I’ve counted up the staggering and cost

And found that gold for grain sets spirits free

With quill in hand, I sit amidst the rout

And mark my parchment with a steady stroke

While drunkards clamor with a joyous shout

I wrap my spirit in a sable cloak

The whiskey is a muse that doth not judge

A clerk that watches as the ink doth flow

It bears toward my soul no hidden grudge

But stays to see the waning candle low