Classic Poem

Lord of the serpent vine,
Thyself the mystic wine
That fills the faint and gives the weary wings:
I also feel the swift
Glad leaping of thy gift,
Wild fire that mayhap was the ancient flame
Of lust and shame
Within fierce lips of courtezans and kings.

Lord of the bright fawn-skin,
Whose kiss is deadly sin,
And gives to Death thy lovers for a spoil:
Yet these red lips are fain
Life's purple cup to drain,
Before I lay my ivy-crownèd head
Where dreamless dead
Are strewn in ashes wet with wine and oil.

Zagreus, twin, sexless, wild,
Bacchos, immortal child
Of mortal mother drawing laboured breath,
No light of star is shed
Above thy lovers dead:
Only lone voices linger like the wails
Of nightingales
In the pale kingdom of the Lord of Death