“With years a richer life begins,
The spirit mellows:
Ripe age gives tone to violins,
Wine, and good fellows.”
Three Worlds.
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John Townsend Trowbridge 11
American author 1827–1916Related quotes

“Good wine is a necessity of life for me.”
As quoted in The Man from Monticello : An Intimate Life of Thomas Jefferson (1969) by Thomas J. Fleming, p. 250
Posthumous publications

“Give me some more wine, because life is nothing.”
Source: Poems of Fernando Pessoa

“It says nothing against the ripeness of a spirit that it has a few worms.”
II.353
Human, All Too Human (1878)

Book the First
Sordello (1840)
Context: But, gathering in its ancient market-place,
Talked group with restless group; and not a face
But wrath made livid, for among them were
Death's staunch purveyors, such as have in care
To feast him. Fear had long since taken root
In every breast, and now these crushed its fruit,
The ripe hate, like a wine: to note the way
It worked while each grew drunk! men grave and grey
Stood, with shut eyelids, rocking to and fro.
Letting the silent luxury trickle slow
About the hollows where a heart should be;
But the young gulped with a delirious glee
Some foretaste of their first debauch in blood
At the fierce news