I have known you for a long time:
Women,, and wine, and rhyme.

The prospect is most fine:
With women, and rhyme, and wine.

The hill does gently decline:
With women,, and rhyme, and wine.

Yet the world is surely divine:
With women, and rhyme, and wine.

—

Note: I was influenced, I believe, when composing the above poem, by Ernest Christopher Dowson’s “The Poet’s Road” which runs thus:

“Wine and woman and song,

Three things garnish our way:

Yet is day over long.

Lest we do our youth wrong,

Gather them while we may:

Wine and woman and song.

Three things render us strong,

Vine leaves, kisses and bay;

Yet is day over long.

Unto us they belong,

Us the bitter and gay,

Wine and woman and song.

We, as we pass along,

Are sad that they will not stay;

Yet is day over long.

Fruits and flowers among,

What is better than they:

Wine and woman and song?”