Crossword-Solution: TOPERS 6 letters, 17 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 8

With an aching eye and a throbbing brain, And yet with a hopeful heart, I must toil and strain with the planets again When the rays of the sun depart; He who must needs with the topers tope, And the feasters feast in the hall, How can he hope with a matter to cope That is immaterial? Orion: He who his appetite stints and curbs, Shut up in the northern wing, With his rye-bread flavoured with bitter herbs, And his draught from the tasteless spring, Good sooth, he is but a sorry clown.

And well it might; for here was the whole world’s stock of spirituous liquors, which, instead of kindling a frenzied light in the eyes of individual topers as of yore, soared upwards with a bewildering gleam that startled all mankind.

And I vowed “’Twill be said I’m a fortunate fellow, When the breakfast is spread, When the topers are mellow, When the foam of the bride-cake is white, and the fierce orange-blossoms are yellow!” O that languishing yawn! O those eloquent eyes! I was drunk with the dawn Of a splendid surmise— I was stung by a look, I was slain by a tear, by a tempest of sighs.

Away with four fresh horses from the Bald-faced Stag, where topers congregate about the door admiring; and the last team with traces hanging loose, go roaming off towards the pond, until observed and shouted after by a dozen throats, while volunteering boys pursue them.

Two societies of the village yeomanry used to meet, under the appellation of the Bedford topers, and to challenge the lovers of good ale of the neighboring villages to a contest of drinking.