T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
From the Odes of Anacreon, LIX.
By Thomas Moore (17791852)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. | |