Where are the Beers of long ago?
I often deep and darkly ponder;
Where are the Beers that used to flow?
Where are they now? I guess and wonder.
Lie they at rest in tombs afar
Along with thoughts we used to think?
Say, Bacchus -- tell us where they are,
Those long, cool Beers we used to drink?
Do they, re-drawn all far away,
Scent fairy-fashioned Hebes' bowers!
Or fail to cheer the dead men gray
With brown and softly falling showers?
Perhaps behind some spectral bar
They're quaffed with winks we used to wink,
And wealthy goblins globular
Drink ghosts of Beers we used to drink!
First published in The Bulletin, 29 March 1902
Author: Grant Madison Hervey (1880-1933) was born George Henry Cochrane in Casterton, Victoria. After working as a blacksmith in his youth, Hervey began to write poetry, journalism and fiction. He was a larger-than-life character, being charged with attempted murder in 1905, and later serving gaol terms for "forging and uttering". He traveled to Sydney, Perth and the Western Australian goldfields earning a reputation as a "despicable" journalist. He died in Melbourne in 1933.
Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography
See also.
I often deep and darkly ponder;
Where are the Beers that used to flow?
Where are they now? I guess and wonder.
Lie they at rest in tombs afar
Along with thoughts we used to think?
Say, Bacchus -- tell us where they are,
Those long, cool Beers we used to drink?
Do they, re-drawn all far away,
Scent fairy-fashioned Hebes' bowers!
Or fail to cheer the dead men gray
With brown and softly falling showers?
Perhaps behind some spectral bar
They're quaffed with winks we used to wink,
And wealthy goblins globular
Drink ghosts of Beers we used to drink!
First published in The Bulletin, 29 March 1902
Author: Grant Madison Hervey (1880-1933) was born George Henry Cochrane in Casterton, Victoria. After working as a blacksmith in his youth, Hervey began to write poetry, journalism and fiction. He was a larger-than-life character, being charged with attempted murder in 1905, and later serving gaol terms for "forging and uttering". He traveled to Sydney, Perth and the Western Australian goldfields earning a reputation as a "despicable" journalist. He died in Melbourne in 1933.
Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography
See also.
