Classic Poem

Comrades ! we have sung and laughed
Merrily to-night;
Each of us a cup hath quaffed
To his mistress bright
Do not let a sadder strain
Take you by surprise;
Ere the toast we fill again
I would moralise

Blazoned in our firmament
Float the poiséd hours,
From their task, like us, unbent,
Garlanded with flowers.
In this polished table's face
See the wax-lights gleam,
As the early sunbeams chase
Darkness from a stream.

Say, is not this empty glass
Some poor spirit's jail?
Else, when I my finger pass
Round it, why this wail?
Now a maiden's plaintive sigh,
Now a captive's groan,
Now a stricken warrior's cry
Seems its swelling tone.

These dim arabesques you see
Gild its ruddy bowl,
Are the faded tracery
Of a magic scroll.
Mine the wizard's mystic lore
To divine the spell,
And evoke those shapes of yore
From the crystal cell.

Hist! an echo now replies
Faintly to my hymn;
Lo! a ghost with pale blue eyes
Rises to the brim.

Wistful is his visage cold,
Trimmed his beard with grace,
As we see in many an old
Pictured knightly face.

To my ear those lips so pale,
In his native tongue
Whisper now a sadder tale
Than our lips have sung
'Tis a century at least
Since Venetian mould
Fashioned for his bridal feast
This red cup I hold.

Day had only broken thrice
Ere the Adriatic,
Of his young heart's Paradise
Quenched the bliss ecstatic
Ransomed came from Tunis' strand
One long mourned as dead,
By whose madly jealous hand
His fair life was sped.

Though she wept and tore her hair
On her darling's bier,
Fugitive was her despair
As the fleeting year.
Hardly was the crimson dried
On the fatal knife,
Ere became the victim's bride
The destroyer's wife.

From this chalice, which her lips
Drained their bridal night,
He, in spirit hovering, sips
Still a sad delight
Hark! the spectre chants a lay
Of the olden time—
Listen, while my lips essay
To repeat the rhyme.

All the friends who round my bridal board
Joyous shone,
Are, like me, beneath the tufted sward,
Dead and gone.

Oft has this beloved goblet rung
Life's first dawn;
Often wailed the child whose birth it sung,
Dead and gone.

Warriors I have seen, and statesmen hoary,
Round it drawn.
Seen eclipsed their wisdom and their glory,
Dead and gone.

Jovial guests! how near your notes of glee,
Those lips yawn,
To swallow you as they have swallowed me,
Dead and gone.

Comrades! sadly sings the ghost
Of this ruby glass;
Fill to him a silent toast—
Quick the flagon pass
If so near the red lips yawn
Of the glutton grave,
Let us antedate the dawn
In this rosy wave!