The Wine of Jurancon

By Charles Coran

Little sweet wine of Jurancon, / You are dear to my memory still! / With mine host and his merry song, / Under the rose-tree I drank my fill.

Twenty years after, passing that way, / Under the trellis I found again / Mine host, still sitting there au frais, / And singing still the same refrain.

The Jurancon, so fresh and bold, / Treats me as one it used to know; / Souvenirs of the days of old / Already from the bottle flow,

With glass in hand our glances met; / We pledge, we drink. How sour it is / Never Argenteuil piquette / Was to my palate sour as this!

And yet the vintage was good, in sooth; / The self-same juice, the self-same cask! / It was you, O gayety of my youth, / That failed in the autumnal flask!