| |
B.C. 276
PUT out to sea, if wine thou wouldest make | |
| Such as is made in Cos: when open boat | |
| May safely launch, advice of pilots take; | |
| And find the deepest bottom, most remote | |
| From all encroachment of the crumbling shore, | 5 |
| Where no fresh stream tempers the rich salt wave, | |
| Forcing rash sweetness on sage ocean’s brine; | |
| As youthful shepherds pour | |
| Their first love forth to Battos gnarl’d and grave, | |
| Fooling shrewd age to bless some fond design. | 10 |
| |
| Not after storm! but when, for a long spell, | |
| No white-maned horse has raced across the blue, | |
| Put from the beach! lest troubled be the well— | |
| Less pure thy draught than from such depth were due. | |
| Fast close thy largest jars, prepared and clean! | 15 |
| Next weight each buoyant womb down through the flood, | |
| Far down! when, with a cord the lid remove, | |
| And it will fill unseen, | |
| Swift as a heart Love smites sucks back the blood:— | |
| This bubbles, deeper born than sighs, shall prove. | 20 |
| |
| If thy bow’d shoulders ache, as thou dost haul— | |
| Those groan who climb with rich ore from the mine; | |
| Labour untold round Ilion girt a wall; | |
| A god toil’d that Achilles’ arms might shine; | |
| Think of these things and double knit thy will! | 25 |
| Then, should the sun be hot on thy return, | |
| Cover thy jars with piles of bladder weed, | |
| Dripping, and fragrant still | |
| From sea-wolds where it grows like bracken-fern: | |
| A grapnel dragg’d will soon supply thy need. | 30 |
| |
| Home to a tun convey thy precious freight! | |
| Wherein, for thirty days, it should abide, | |
| Closed, yet not quite closed from the air, and wait | |
| While, through dim stillness, slowly doth subside | |
| Thick sediment. The humour of a day, | 35 |
| Which has defeated youth and health and joy, | |
| Down, through a dreamless sleep, will settle thus, | |
| Till riseth maiden gay, | |
| Set free from all glooms past—or else a boy | |
| Once more a school-friend worthy Troilus. | 40 |
| |
| Yet to such cool wood tank some dream might dip: | |
| Vision of Aphrodite sunk to sleep, | |
| Or of some sailor let down from a ship, | |
| Young, dead, and lovely, while across the deep | |
| Through the calm night his hoarse-voiced comrades chaunt— | 45 |
| So far at sea, they cannot reach the land | |
| To lay him perfect in the warm brown earth. | |
| Pray that such dreams there haunt! | |
| While, through damp darkness, where thy tun doth stand. | |
| Cold salamanders sidle round its girth. | 50 |
| |
| Gently draw off the clear and tomb it yet, | |
| For other twenty days, in cedarn casks! | |
| Where through trance, surely, prophecy will set; | |
| As, dedicated to light temple-tasks, | |
| The young priest dreams the unknown mystery. | 55 |
| Through Ariadne, knelt disconsolate | |
| In the sea’s marge, so well’d back warmth which throbb’d | |
| With nuptial promise: she | |
| Turn’d; and, half-choked through dewy glens, some great, | |
| Some magic drone of revel coming sobb’d. | 60 |
| |
| Of glorious fruit, indeed, must be thy choice! | |
| Such as has fully ripen’d on the branch, | |
| Such as due rain, then sunshine, made rejoice, | |
| Which, pulp’d and colour’d, now deep bloom doth blanch! | |
| Clusters like odes for victors in the games, | 65 |
| Strophe on strophe globed, pure nectar all! | |
| Spread such to dry! if Helios grant thee grace, | |
| Exposed unto his flames | |
| Two days, or, if not, three, or, should rain fall, | |
| Stretch them on hurdles in the house four days! | 70 |
| |
| Grapes are not sharded chestnuts, which the tree | |
| Lets fall to burst them on the ground, where red | |
| Rolls forth the fruit, from white-lined wards set free, | |
| And all undamaged glows ’mid husks it shed; | |
| Nay, they are soft and should be singly stripp’d | 75 |
| From off the bunch, by maiden’s dainty hand, | |
| Then dropp’d through the cool silent depth to sink | |
| (Coy, as herself hath slipp’d, | |
| Bathing, from shelves in caves along the strand) | |
| Till round each dark grape water barely wink; | 80 |
| |
| Since some nine measures of sea-water fill | |
| A butt of fifty, ere the plump fruit peep, | |
| Like sombre dolphin shoals when nights are still, | |
| Which penn’d in Proteus’ wizard circle sleep, | |
| And ’twixt them glinting curves of silver glance | 85 |
| If Zephyr, dimpling dark calm, counts them o’er. | |
| Let soak thy fruit for two days thus, then tread! | |
| While bare-legg’d bumpkins dance, | |
| Bright from thy bursting press arch’d spouts shall pour, | |
| And gurgling torrents towards thy vats run red. | 90 |
| |
| Meanwhile the maidens, each with wooden rake, | |
| Drag back the skins and laugh at aprons splash’d; | |
| Or youths rest, boasting how their brown arms ache, | |
| So fast their shovels for so long have flash’d, | |
| Baffling their comrades’ legs with mounting heaps. | 95 |
| Treble their labour! still the happier they, | |
| Who, at this genial task, wear out long hours, | |
| Till vast night round them creeps, | |
| When soon the torch-light dance whirls them away; | |
| For gods, who love wine, double all their powers. | 100 |
| |
| Iacchus is the always grateful god! | |
| His vineyards are more fair than gardens far; | |
| Hanging, like those of Babylon, they nod | |
| O’er each Ionian cliff and hill-side scar! | |
| While Cypris lends him saltness, depth, and peace; | 105 |
| The brown earth yields him sap for richest green; | |
| And he has borrow’d laughter from the sky; | |
| Wildness from winds; and bees | |
| Bring honey.—Then choose casks which thou hast seen | |
| Are leakless, very wholesome, and quite dry! | 110 |
| |
| That Coan wine the very finest is, | |
| I do assure thee, who have travell’d much | |
| And learn’d to judge of diverse vintages. | |
| Faint not before the toil! this wine is such | |
| As tempteth princes launch long pirate barks;— | 115 |
| From which may Zeus protect Sicilian bays, | |
| And, ere long, me safe home from Egypt bring, | |
| Letting no black-sail’d sharks | |
| Scent this king’s gifts, for whom I sweeten praise | |
| With those same songs thou didst to Chloë sing! | 120 |
| |
| I wrote them ’neath the vine-cloak’d elm, for thee. | |
| Recall those nights! our couches were a load | |
| Of scented lentisk; upward, tree by tree, | |
| Thy father’s orchard sloped, and past us flow’d | |
| A stream sluiced for his vineyards; when, above, | 125 |
| The apples fell, they on to us were roll’d, | |
| But kept us not awake,—O Laco, own | |
| How thou didst rave of love! | |
| Now art thou staid, thy son is three years old; | |
| But I, who made thee love-songs, live alone. | 130 |
| |
| Muse thou at dawn o’er thy yet slumbering wife!— | |
| Not chary of her best was Nature there, | |
| Who, though a third of her full gift of life | |
| Was spent, still added beauties still more rare; | |
| What calm slow days, what holy sleep at night, | 135 |
| Evolved her for long twilight trystings fraught | |
| With panic blushes and tip-toe surmise: | |
| And then, what mystic might— | |
| All, with a crowning boon, through travail brought! | |
| Consider this and give thy best likewise! | 140 |
| |
| Ungrateful be not! Laco, ne’er be that! | |
| Well worth thy while to make such wine ’twould be: | |
| I see thy red face ’neath thy broad straw hat, | |
| I see thy house, thy vineyards, Sicily!— | |
| Thou dost demur, good, but too easy, friend: | 145 |
| Come put those doubts away! thou hast strong lads, | |
| Brave wenches; on the steep beach lolls thy ship, | |
| Where vine-clad slopes descend, | |
| Sheltering our bay, that headlong rillet glads, | |
| Like a stripp’d child fain in the sea to dip. | 150 |
| |
