Return to Poems List

Some Short Extracts From Poems About Drinking.

 

Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 1883.

Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the Devil had done for the rest-
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum.

 

Henry Aldrich. Reasons For Drinking. 1689.

If all be true that I do think
There are 5 good reasons we should drink
Good wine – a friend – or being dry –
Or lest we should be by and by –
Or any other reason why.

 

Alexander Pope. The Dunciad. 1742.

Flow Welsted, flow! Like thine inspirer, Beer,
Tho’ stale, not ripe; tho’ thin, yet never clear;
So sweetly mawkish, and so smoothly dull;
Heady, not strong; o’erflowing tho’ not full.

 

 Goerge Crabbe. Inebriety. 1775.

Lo! The poor toper whose untutored sense,
Sees bliss in ale, and can wine dispense;
Whose head proud fancy never taught to steer,
Beyond the muddy ecstasies of beer.