William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Massachusetts Poets. 1922.

A Banquet

AFTER the song the love, and after the love the play,

Flute girl and pretty boy blowing

Bubbles of sparkling

Wine into darkling

Beards of a former austerity, stern even now, but fast growing

Foolish, with less of a stately

Reserve that held them sedately.

Oh Zeus, what a sight! With the wine dripping off it,

The grin of an ass on a bald-pated prophet.

After the feast the night, and after the night the day,

Fool and philosopher stirring

With the day dawning,

Stretching and yawning,

While in each wine-throbbing, desolated brain is the wheeling and whirring

Of thousands of bats, that the slaking

Of throats will not hinder from aching,

No wine for the brow that is beating to bursting,

But water at morning is quench for the thirsting!