Wine Poems
Wine poems are some of the most relatable poems to read. Who doesn’t love a cup of wine every now and then? Certainly these poets have an appreciation. Pablo Neruda, Ted Kooser, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and many others have written about wine. We even feature a poem from Li Po written in 700 C.E. Wine poems are fun and timeless.
Why Wine Poems?
I think there is something so relatable to reading a wine poem. Drinking wine with your friends or having a single glass after a particularly long or hard day can remind you to take a moment and appreciate your life. Wine poems celebrate a lust for life, a desire for the finer things, a desire for friendship and camaraderie. Enjoy this small collection of wine poems!
How to Make Rhubarb Wine by Ted Kooser
Go to the patch some afternoon
in early summer, fuzzy with beer
and sunlight, and pick a sack
of rhubarb (red or green will do)
and God knows watch for rattlesnakes
or better, listen; they make a sound
like an old lawn mower rolled downhill.
Wear a hat. A straw hat’s best
for the heat but lets the gnats in.
Bunch up the stalks and chop the leaves off
with a buck knife and be careful.
You need ten pounds; a grocery bag
packed full will do it. Then go home
and sit barefooted in the shade
behind the house with a can of beer.
Spread out the rhubarb in the grass
and wash it with cold water
from the garden hose, washing
your feet as well. Then take a nap.
That evening, dice the rhubarb up
and put it in a crock. Then pour
eight quarts of boiling water in,
cover it up with a checkered cloth
to keep the fruit flies out of it,
and let it stand five days or so.
Take time each day to think of it.
Ferment ten days, under the cloth,
sniffing of it from time to time,
then siphon it off, swallowing some
and bottle it. Sit back and watch
the liquid clear to honey yellow,
bottled and ready for the years,
and smile. You’ve done it awfully well.
At the Party by C.W. Bryan
The pads of the cat
so silently stalking,
too quiet to hear amongst
drunk people talking.
Until all at once,
not a moment before
she pushes the wine bottle
down onto the floor.
Drinking Alone by Moonlight by Li Po
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.
Ode to Wine by Pablo Neruda
Wine the color of day,
wine the color of night,
wine with purple feet
or topaz blood,
wine,
starry son
of the earth,
wine, smooth
like a saber of gold,
suave
like a decadent velvet feel,
wine decanted in a spiral seashell
and suspended,
amorous,
marine,
you’ve never belonged in one cup,
in one song, in one man,
chorus-like, gregarious are you,
and at least, feeling’s mutual.
Sometimes
you feed on our memories
of fatalistic melancholy,
sloshed in your wave
tumbling in tomb dead drunk we go,
you mason of this stone-cold sepulcher,
and we cry
passing tears,
but
to be in your handsome
picnic suit
is a different scene,
the heart rises to the treetops,
the rustling breeze keeps the day going,
nothing is left unmoved
within your immovable soul.
Read the full poem here.
A Glass of Wine by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
What’s in a glass of wine?
There, set the glass where I can look within.
Now listen to me, friend, while I begin
And tell you what I see-
What I behold with my far-reaching eyes,
And what I know to be
Below the laughing bubbles that arise
Within this glass of wine.
There is a little spirit, night and day,
That cries one word, for ever and alway:
That single word is “More!”
And whoso drinks a glass of wine, drinks him:
You fill the goblet full unto the brim,
And strive to silence him.
Glass after glass you drain to quench his thirst,
Each glass contains a spirit like the first;
And all their voices cry
Until they shriek and clamor, howl and rave,
And shout “More!” noisily,
Till welcome death prepares the drunkard’s grave,
And stills the imps that rave.
That see I in the wine:
And tears so many that I cannot guess;
And all these drops are labelled with “Distress.”
I know you cannot see.
And at the bottom are the dregs of shame:
Oh! it is plain to me.
And there are woes too terrible to name:
Now drink your glass of wine.
The Spirit of Wine by William Ernest Henley
The Spirit of Wine
Sang in my glass, and I listened
With love to his odorous music,
His flushed and magnificent song.
‘I am health, I am heart, I am life!
For I give for the asking
The fire of my father, the Sun,
And the strength of my mother, the Earth.
Inspiration in essence,
I am wisdom and wit to the wise,
His visible muse to the poet,
The soul of desire to the lover,
The genius of laughter to all.
‘Come, lean on me, ye that are weary!
Rise, ye faint-hearted and doubting!
Haste, ye that lag by the way!
I am Pride, the consoler;
Valour and Hope are my henchmen;
I am the Angel of Rest.
‘I am life, I am wealth, I am fame:
For I captain an army
Of shining and generous dreams;
And mine, too, all mine, are the keys
Of that secret spiritual shrine,
Where, his work-a-day soul put by,
Shut in with his saint of saints –
With his radiant and conquering self –
Man worships, and talks, and is glad.
‘Come, sit with me, ye that are lovely,
Ye that are paid with disdain,
Ye that are chained and would soar!
I am beauty and love;
I am friendship, the comforter;
I am that which forgives and forgets.’ –
The Spirit of Wine
Sang in my heart, and I triumphed
In the savour and scent of his music,
His magnetic and mastering song.
Bacchus by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Bring me wine, but wine which never grew
In the belly of the grape,
Or grew on vine whose tap-roots, reaching through
Under the Andes to the Cape,
Suffer’d no savour of the earth to ‘scape.
Let its grapes the morn salute
From a nocturnal root,
Which feels the acrid juice
Of Styx and Erebus;
And turns the woe of Night,
By its own craft, to a more rich delight.
We buy ashes for bread;
We buy diluted wine;
Give me of the true,
Whose ample leaves and tendrils curl’d
Among the silver hills of heaven
Draw everlasting dew;
Wine of wine,
Blood of the world,
Form of forms, and mould of statures,
That I intoxicated,
And by the draught assimilated,
May float at pleasure through all natures;
The bird-language rightly spell,
And that which roses say so well:
Wine that is shed
Like the torrents of the sun
Up the horizon walls,
Or like the Atlantic streams, which run
When the South Sea calls.
Read the full poem here.
Night by Jianqing Zheng
After bathing in the pond,
I wrap myself in a towel
and beeline back.
Night ripples its gray
over the skyline’s last pink.
A flock of sparrows burst
from the threshing floor.
Cordilleras rise
and fall in silhouette
like a trail of graves,
a pale moon for a wreath.
Somewhere in the village,
dogs are barking and possibly
chasing jackals.
Back at the room,
my workmate is asleep,
bubbling snores.
I light a cigarette
over the oil lamp.
In the next room,
a bedstead creaks,
hunger after a day’s toil.
Spitting out tobacco dregs,
I shout “Get up! Let’s drink wine.”
Read More
If you enjoyed reading these wine poems, especially those by Ted Kooser and Pablo Neruda, you can read some of Ted Kooser’s best poems here. Additionally, I’d recommend checking out Neruda’s Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, translated by W.S. Merlin. It’s one of my favorite collections ever, and is filled with Neruda’s signature style. Thanks for reading!
