‘skull’
- prolonging life, turning something useless into a useful vessel
‘spirit fled’
double entrendre- religious and alcohol
‘flows’
‘i lived.. quaffed’
syntax
- quaff at the end, most memorable stays in people’s minds
‘alas!’
exclamation, hyperbolic, sarcastic, mocking those who philiosophise life and death
‘what nobler substitute than wine?’
rhetorical- replacing big philosophical questions with silly
‘earth’s embrace’
- ‘embrace’ = intimate rationalising, you will still be accepted
‘life’s little day’
turning whole span of existence into something minor
structure
- cyclical every quatrain completes its meaning by its consistent musicality- prolonging of life