| |
| SABLED by the solar beam, | |
| Now the fiery clusters teem, | |
| In osier baskets, borne along | |
| By all the festal vintage throng | |
| Of rosy youths and virgins fair, | 5 |
| Ripe as the melting fruits they bear. | |
| Now, now they press the pregnant grapes, | |
| And now the captive stream escapes, | |
| In fervid tide of nectar gushing, | |
| And for its bondage proudly blushing! | 10 |
| While round the vat’s impurpled brim, | |
| The choral song, the vintage hymn | |
| Of rosy youths and virgins fair, | |
| Steals on the cloy’d and panting air. | |
| Mark, how they drink, with all their eyes, | 15 |
| The orient tide sparkling flies; | |
| The infant balm of all their fears, | |
| The infant Bacchus, born in tears! | |
| When he, whose verging years decline, | |
| As deep into the vale as mine, | 20 |
| When he inhales the vintage-spring, | |
| His heart is fire, his foot’s a wing; | |
| And as he flies, his hoary hair | |
| Plays truant with the wanton air! | |
| While the warm youth, whose wishing soul | 25 |
| Has kindled o’er the inspiring bowl, | |
| Impassioned seeks the shadowy grove, | |
| Where, in the tempting guise of love, | |
| Reclining sleeps some witching maid, | |
| Whose sunny charms but half displayed, | 30 |
| Blushed through the bower, that, closely twined, | |
| Excludes the kisses of the wind! | |
| The virgin wakes, the glowing boy | |
| Allures her to the embrace of joy; | |
| Swears that the herbage Heaven had spread | 35 |
| Was sacred as the nuptial bed; | |
| That laws should never bind desire, | |
| And love was nature’s holiest fire! | |
| The virgin weeps, the virgin sighs; | |
| He kissed her lips, he kissed her eyes; | 40 |
| The sigh was balm, the tear was dew, | |
| They only raised his flame anew. | |
| And oh! he stole the sweetest flower | |
| That ever bloomed in any bower! | |
| Such is the madness wine imparts, | 45 |
| Whene’er it steals on youthful hearts. | |
| |
