The wine was sweeter yesterday
The tables of the street café
Held Pernod and Grand Marnier
The syrup of the summer day
Untainted by the clink of ice
But side by side with scent of spice
Came poems from the flashing pen
The wine was sweeter then
When skies were bluer yesterday
The longer summers went their way
From year to year and day to day
To sing a drunken roundelay
On nights it never seemed to rain
To sing the poem once again
With gaiety remembering when
The skies were bluer then
The firelight flickers playing games
With pine-log perfume in the flames
Went dancing on the window panes
As winters daylight slowly wanes
And shadows that seemed soft and warm
Kept whispering as they performed
Mazurkas in the winter's night
The fire flickers bright
These memories have never gone
For something somewhere lingers on
That conjured by nostalgia's wand
Comes silently from far beyond
From pastures where the grass grew high
And green within the memories eye
The memories do themselves fulfil
The wine is sweeter still
