Classic Poem

LOVER .

Come , Bacchus, come! so may the mystic vine
And verdant ivy round thy temples twine!
My pains, the anguish I endure, remove:
Oft hast thou vanquish'd the fierce pangs of love.
Haste, boy; with old Falernian crown the bowl;
In the gay cordial let me drench my soul.
Hence, gloomy care! I give you to the wind:
The god of fancy frolics in my mind.
My dear companions! favour my design;
Let's drown our senses all in rosy wine!

COMPANION .

Those may the fair with practis'd guile abuse,
Who, sourly wise, the gay dispute refuse:
The jolly god can cheerfulness impart,
Enlarge the soul, and pour out all the heart.

LOVER .

But Love the monsters of the wood can tame,
The wildest tigers own the powerful flame:
He bends the stubborn to his awful sway,
And melts insensibility away:
So wide the reign of Love!

COMPANION .

Wine, wine, dear boy!
Can any here in empty goblets joy?
No, no; the god can never disapprove,
That those who praise him should a bumper love.
What terrors arm his brow? the goblet drain:
To be too sober is to be profane!
Her son, who mock'd his rites, Agave tore,
And furious scatter'd round the yelling shore.
Such fears be far from us, dread god of wine!
Thy rites we honour, we are wholly thine.
But let the sober wretch thy vengeance prove:

LOVER .

Or her whom all my sufferings cannot move!
— What pray'd I rashly for? my madding prayer,
Ye winds, disperse, unratified, in air:
For though, my love! I'm blotted from your soul,
Serenely rise your days, serenely roll!

COMPANION .

The lovesick struggle past, again be gay:
Come crown'd with roses, let's drink down the day!

LOVER .

Ah me! loud-laughing mirth how hard to feign!
When doom'd a victim to love's dreadful pain:
How forc'd the drunken catch, the smiling jest,
When black solicitude annoys the breast!

COMPANION .

Complaints, away! the blithsome god of wine
Abhors to hear his genuine votaries whine.

*****

LOVER .

You, Ariadne! on a coast unknown,
The perjur'd Theseus wept, and wept alone;
But learn'd Catullus, in immortal strains,
Has sung his baseness, and has wept your pains.
*****

*****

COMPANION .

Thrice happy they, who hear experience call,
And shun the precipice where others fall.
When the fair clasps you to her breast, beware,
Nor trust her, by her eyes although she swear;
Not though, to drive suspicion from your breast,
Or love's soft queen, or Juno she attest:
No truth the women know; their looks are lies.

LOVER .

Yet Jove connives at amorous perjuries.
Hence, serious thoughts! then why do I complain?
The fair are licens'd by the gods to feign.
Yet would the guardian-powers of gentle love,
This once indulgent to my wishes prove,
Each day we then should laugh, and talk, and toy;
And pass each night in Hymeneal joy.
O let my passion fix thy faithless heart!
For still I love thee, faithless as thou art.
Bacchus the Naiad loves; then haste, my boy!
My wine to temper cooler streams employ.
What though the smiling board Neaera flies,
And in a rival's arms perfidious lies;
The live-long night, all sleepless, must I whine?
Not I —

COMPANION .

Quick, servants! bring us stronger wine.

LOVER .

Now Syrian odours scent the festal room,
Let rosy garlands on our foreheads bloom.