My spirits turn to fire, they mount so fast. 

My joys are turbulent, my hopes show like fruition. 

These high and gusty relishes of life, sure, 

Have no allayings of mortality in them. 

I am too hot now and o'ercapable, 

For the tedious processes, and creeping wisdom, 

Of human acts, and enterprises of a man.

Its counterpart is his equally acute soliloquy on "the morning after":

A weight of wine lies heavy on my head, 

The unconcocted follies of last night. 

Now all those jovial fancies, and bright hopes, 

Children of wine, go off like dreams. 

This sick vertigo here 

Preacheth of temperance, no sermon better.

The only interesting feature of the plot of John Woodvil is that, in the end, Woodvil finds his own best self through the self-loss of drunkenness. Even as a young man, and before he had waded far out into the sea of dissipation, Lamb was presciently aware of the double potency of wine.