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Inscription for an Antique Pitcher
COME, old friend! sit down and listen! | |
| From the pitcher, placed between us, | |
| How the waters laugh and glisten | |
| In the head of old Silenus! | |
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| Old Silenus, bloated, drunken, | 5 |
| Led by his inebriate Satyrs; | |
| On his breast his head is sunken, | |
| Vacantly he leers and chatters. | |
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| Fauns with youthful Bacchus follow; | |
| Ivy crowns that brow supernal | 10 |
| As the forehead of Apollo, | |
| And possessing youth eternal. | |
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| Round about him, fair Bacchantes, | |
| Bearing cymbals, flutes, and thyrses, | |
| Wild from Naxian groves, or Zante’s | 15 |
| Vineyards, sing delirious verses. | |
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| Thus he won, through all the nations, | |
| Bloodless victories, and the farmer | |
| Bore, as trophies and oblations, | |
| Vines for banners, ploughs for armor. | 20 |
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| Judged by no o’erzealous rigor, | |
| Much this mystic throng expresses: | |
| Bacchus was the type of vigor, | |
| And Silenus of excesses. | |
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| These are ancient ethnic revels, | 25 |
| Of a faith long since forsaken; | |
| Now the Satyrs, changed to devils, | |
| Frighten mortals wine-o’ertaken. | |
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| Now to rivulets from the mountains | |
| Point the rods of fortune-tellers; | 30 |
| Youth perpetual dwells in fountains,— | |
| Not in flasks, and casks, and cellars. | |
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| Claudius, though he sang of flagons | |
| And huge tankards filled with Rhenish, | |
| From that fiery blood of dragons | 35 |
| Never would his own replenish. | |
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| Even Redi, though he chaunted | |
| Bacchus in the Tuscan valleys, | |
| Never drank the wine he vaunted | |
| In his dithyrambic sallies. | 40 |
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| Then with water fill the pitcher | |
| Wreathed about with classic fables; | |
| Ne’er Falernian threw a richer | |
| Light upon Lucullus’ tables. | |
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| Come, old friend, sit down and listen! | 45 |
| As it passes thus between us, | |
| How its wavelets laugh and glisten | |
| In the head of old Silenus! | |
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