Explore "Lines Inscribed Upon a Cup Formed from a Skull" by Lord Byron on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Start not - nor deem my spirit fled: / In me behold the only skull / From which, unlike a living head, / Whatever flows is never dull.
I lived, I loved, I quaffed like thee; / I died: let earth my bones resign: / Fill up - thou canst not injure me; / The worm hath fouler lips than thine.
Better to hold the sparkling grape / Than nurse the earthworm's slimy brood, / And circle in the goblet's shape / The drink of gods than reptile's food.
Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone, / In aid of others' let me shine; / And when, alas! our brains are gone, / What nobler substitute than wine?
Quaff while thou canst; another race, / When thou and thine like me are sped, / May rescue thee from earth's embrace, / And rhyme and revel with the dead.
Why not - since through life's little day / Our heads such sad effects produce? / Redeemed from worms and wasting clay, / This chance is theirs to be of use.