Noah from the ark had got, The Lord came to him on the spot; He smelt his offering in the wind, And said to thee I will be kind. And since a pious house thou art, Thyself shall name the gracious part.
Then Noah answered, as he stood, "Dear Lord, this water smacks not good. Therefore I, poor old man, would fain Some different kind of drink obtain, Since that there hath been drowned therein All sinful beasts, and men of sin."
To Paradise, God stretched his hand, And gave him thence a vine-stock grand; He gave him counsel good and right, Said, "Tend thou this with all thy might." He him instructed,--so, and so,-- Till Noah's joy no bounds did know.
Both wife and child did Noah call, His servants and his house-folks all. He planted vineyards all about-- For, trust me, Noah was no lout; Built cellars then, and pressed the wine, And tunned it into hogsheads fine.
Old Noah was a pious man; Soon to a row his barrels ran. To God's high praise he drained each cask, Nor deemed it, faith, a heavy task. He drank, thereafter, as appears, Three hundred yet and fifty years.
A knowing man thence see it will, That wine well used, can do no ill. And farther,--that no Christian more Into his wine will water pour,-- Because there hath been drowned therein, All sinful beasts, and men of sin.
The Germans never despised their cups. Tacitus, in his time, said of them--"To drink day and night brings disgrace to no one." Tacitus might, in truth, have said pretty much the same of his own people. If in the beginning they mixed their wine with water, this is not to be taken as the fact in an after period. Who does not recollect the son of Cicero, the most celebrated drinker of his time, with whose exploits in tippling scarcely the Germans could match themselves, stout drinkers as they were? It is well known that the ancient Germans transacted their most important affairs when they were elate with Bacchus, and reconsidered them, the next day, with a sober understanding. This custom they retained, in many places, during the Middle Ages, and this was the case in the free city of Bremen. Wine and song have maintained their standing in every true Brotherhood, and this still continues to be the practice in Germany. This ancient German custom then, least of all could be expected to be abandoned in Burschendom, and their songs are, for the most part, sung over the cup.