And when the cluster's mellowing dews
Their warm enchanting balm infuse,
Our feet shall catch the elastic bound,
And reel us through the dance's round.
O Bacchus! we shall sing to thee,
In wild but sweet ebriety!
And flash around such sparks of thought.
As Bacchus could alone have taught!
Then give the harp of epic song
Which Homer's finger thrilled along ;
But tear away the sanguine string,
For war is not the theme I sing!
LISTEN to the Muse's lyre,
Master of the pencil's fire!
Sketched in painting's bold display,
Many a city first portray;
Many a city, revelling free,
Warm with loose festivity.
Picture then a rosy train,
Bacchants straying o'er the plain;
Piping as they roam along
Roundelay or shepherd-song.
Paint me next, if painting may
Such a theme as this portray,
All the happy heaven of love
These elect of Cupid prove.
VULCAN! hear your glorious task;
I do not from your labours ask
In gorgeous panoply to shine,
For war was ne'er a sport of mine
No-let me have a silver bowl,
Where I may cradle all my soul:
But let not o'er its simple frame
Your mimic constellations flame;
Nor grave upon the swelling side
Orion scowling o'er the tide.
I care not for the glittering Wain,
Nor yet the weeping sister train.
But oh! let vines luxuriant roll
Their blushing tendrils round the bowl,
While many a rose-lipped bacchant maid
Is culling clusters in their shade.
Let sylvan gods, in antic shapes,
Wildly press the gushing grapes;
And flights of loves, in wanton ringlets,
Flit around on golden winglets;
While Venus to her mystic bower
Beckons the rosy vintage-Power.
GRAVE me a cup with brilliant grace,
Deep as the rich and holy vase
Which on the shrine of Spring reposes,
When shepherds hail that hour of roses.
Grave it with themes of chaste design,
Formed for a heavenly bowl like mine.
Display not there the barbarous rites
In which religious zeal delights;
Nor any tale of tragic fate
Which history trembles to relate!
No-cull thy fancies from above,
Themes of heaven and themes of love.
Let Bacchus, Jove's ambrosial boy,
Distil the grape in drops of joy,
And while he smiles at every tear,
Let warm-eyed Venus, dancing near,
With spirits of the genial bed,
The dewy herbage deftly tread.
Let Love be there, without his arms,
In timid nakedness of charms;
And all the Graces, linked with Love,
Blushing through the shadowy grove;
While rosy boys disporting round
In circlets trip the velvet ground;
But ah! if there Apollo toys,
I tremble for my rosy boys!
As late I sought the spangled bowers,
To cull a wreath of matin flowers,
Where many an early rose was weeping,
I found the urchin Cupid sleeping.
I caught the boy; a goblet's tide
Was richly mantling by my side;
I caught nim by his downy wing,
And whelmed him in the racy spring.
Oh! then I drank the poisoned bowl,
And Love now nestles in my soul !
Yes, yes, my soul is Cupid's nest,
I feel him fluttering in my breast.
THE Women tell me every day
That all my bloom has passed away.
"Behold," the pretty wanton's cry,
"Behold this mirror with a sigh;
The locks upon thy brow are few,
And, like the rest, they're withering too!"
Whether decline has thinned my hair,
I'm sure I neither know nor care;
But this I know, and this I feel,
As onward to the tomb I steal,
That still as death approaches nearer,
The joys of life are sweeter, dearer;
And had I but an hour to live,
That little hour to bliss I'd give!
I CARE not for the idle state
Of Persia's king, the rich, the great!
I envy not the monarch's throne,
Nor wish the treasured gold my own.
But oh! be mine the rosy braid,
The fervour of my brows to shade;
Be mine the odours, richly sighing,
Amidst my hoary tresses flying.
To-day I'll haste to quaff my wine,
As if to-morrow ne'er should shine;
But if to-morrow comes, why then-
I'll haste to quaff my wine again.
And thus, while all our days are bright,
Nor time has dimmed their bloomy light,
Let us the festal hours beguile
With mantling cup and cordial smile;
And shed from every bowl of wine
The richest drop on Bacchus' shrine!
For Death may come, with brow unpleasant,
May come, when least we wish him present,
And beckon to the sable shore,
And grimly bid us-drink no more!
RAY thee, by the gods above,
Give me the mighty bowl I love,
And let me sing in wild delight,
"I will-I will be mad to-night!"
Alcmæon once, as legends tell
Was frenzied by the fiends of hell;
Orestes, too, with naked tread,
Frantic paced the mountain head;
And why? a murdered mother's shade
Before their conscious fancy played.
But I can ne'er a murderer be,
The grape alone shall bleed by me;
Yet can I rave in wild delight,
"I will-I will be mad to-night!"
The son of Jove, in days of yore,
Imbrued his hands in youthful gore
And brandished, with a maniac joy,
The quiver of the expiring boy:
And Ajax, with tremendous shield,
Infuriate scoured the guiltless field.
But I, whose hands no quiver hold,
No weapon but this flask of gold ;
The trophy of whose frantic hours
Is but a scattered wreath of flowers,
Yet, yet can sing with wild delight,
"I will-I will be mad to-night!'
TELL me how to punish thee,
For the mischief done to me!
Silly swallow! prating thing,
Shall I clip thy wheeling wing?
Or, as Tereus did of old,
(So the fabled tale is told,)
Shall I tear that tongue away,
Tongue that uttered such a lay?
How unthinking hast thou been!
Long before the dawn was seen,
When I slumbered in a dream,
Love was the delicious theme!
Just when I was nearly blest,
Ah! thy matin broke my rest ]
"TELL me, gentle youth, I pray thee What in purchase shall I pay thee For this little waxen toy,
Image of the Paphian boy?"
Thus I said the other day
To a youth who passed my way.
"Sir," (he answered, and the while
Answered all in Doric style,)
Have I numbered every one
Glowing under Egypt's sun?
Or the nymphs who, blushing sweet,
Deck the shrine of Love in Crete;
Where the god, with festal play,
Holds eternal holiday?
Still in clusters, still remain
Gades' warm, desiring train;
Still there lies a myriad more
On the sable India's shore;
These, and many far removed,
Are all loving-all are loved!
"TELL me, why, my sweetest dove,
Thus your humid pinions move,
Shedding through the air in showers
Essence of the balmiest flowers?
Tell me whither, whence you rove,
Tell me all, my sweetest dove."-
"Curious stranger! I belong
To the bard of Teian song;
With his mandate now I fly
To the nymph of azure eye;
Ah! that eye has maddened many,
But the poet more than any!
Venus, for a hymn of love
Warbled in her votive grove,
('Twas in sooth a gentle lay,)
Gave me to the Bard away.
See me now his faithful minion;
Thus with softly-gliding pinion,
To his lovely girl I bear
Songs of passion through the air.
Oft he blandly whispers me,
'Soon, my bird, I'll set you free.'
But in vain he'll bid me fly,
I shall serve him till I die.
Never could my plumes sustain
Ruffling winds and chilling rain,
O'er the plains, or in the dell,
On the mountain's savage swell :
Seeking in the desert wood
Gloomy shelter, rustic food.
Now I lead a life of ease,
Far from such retreats as these:
From Anacreon's hand I eat
Food delicious, viands sweet;
Flutter o'er his goblet's brim,
Sip the foamy wine with him.
|