Catawba Wine

This song of mine         Is a Song of the Vine,     To be sung by the glowing embers         Of wayside inns,         When the rain begins     To darken the drear Novembers.         It is not a song         Of the Scuppernong,     From warm Carolinian valleys,         Nor the Isabel         And the Muscadel     That bask in our garden alleys.         Nor the red Mustang,         Whose clusters hang     O'er the waves of the Colorado,         And the fiery flood         Of whose purple blood     Has a dash of Spanish bravado.         For richest and best         Is the wine of the West,     That grows by the Beautiful River;         Whose sweet perfume         Fills all the room     With a benison on the giver.         And as hollow trees         Are the haunts of bees,     For ever going and coming;         So this crystal hive         Is all alive     With a swarming and buzzing and humming.         Very good in its way         Is the Verzenay,     Or the Sillery soft and creamy;         But Catawba wine         Has a taste more divine,     More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy.         There grows no vine         By the haunted Rhine,     By Danube or Guadalquivir,         Nor on island or cape,         That bears such a grape     As grows by the Beautiful River.         Drugged is their juice         For foreign use,     When shipped o'er the reeling Atlantic,         To rack our brains         With the fever pains,     That have driven the Old World frantic.         To the sewers and sinks         With all such drinks,     And after them tumble the mixer;         For a poison malign         Is such Borgia wine,     Or at best but a Devil's Elixir.         While pure as a spring         Is the wine I sing,     And to praise it, one needs but name it;         For Catawba wine         Has need of no sign,     No tavern-bush to proclaim it.         And this Song of the Vine,         This greeting of mine,     The winds and the birds shall deliver         To the Queen of the West,         In her garlands dressed,     On the banks of the Beautiful River.