Familiar Songs - Their Authors & Histories

300 traditional songs, inc sheet music with full piano accompaniment & lyrics.

	466                                                      OUR FAMILIAR SONGS.
	I'm often asked by plodding souls And men of crafty tongue, What joy I take in draining bowls And tippling all night long. But though these cautious knaves I scorn, For once I'll not disdain To tell them why I sit till morn And fill my glass again. 'Tis by the glow my bumper gives, Life's picture 's mellow made ; The fading light then brightly lives, And softly sinks the shade. Some happier tint still rises there, With every drop I drain, And that I think 's a reason fair To fill my glass again. My Muse, too, when her wings are dry, No frolic flights will take But round the bowl she'll dip and fly, Like swallows round a lake. Then, if each nymph will have her share, Before she'll bless her swain, Why, that I think 's a reason fair To fill my glass again.	In life, I've rung all changes through, Run ev'ry pleasure down, 'Mid each extreme of folly, too, And liv'd with half the town: For me, there's nothing new nor rare, Till wine deceives my brain, And that I think 's a reason fair To fill my glass again. I find, too, when I stint my glass, And sit with sober air, I'm pros'd by some dull reasoning ass, Who treads the path of care; Or, harder still, am doomed to bear • Some coxcomb's fribbling strain, And that I'm sure 's a reason fair To fill my glass again. There's many a lad I knew is dead, And many a lass grown old, And, as the lesson strikes my head, My weary heart grows cold: But wine awhile drives off despair,— Nay, bids a hope remain; — Why, that I think 's a reason fair To fill my glass again.