| |
| MAY the Babylonish curse | |
| Straight confound my stammering verse, | |
| If I can a passage see | |
| In this word-perplexity, | |
| Or a fit expression find, | 5 |
| Or a language to my mind | |
| (Still the phrase is wide or scant), | |
| To take leave of thee, GREAT PLANT! | |
| Or in any terms relate | |
| Half my love, or half my hate; | 10 |
| For I hate, yet love, thee so, | |
| That, whichever thing I show, | |
| The plain truth will seem to be | |
| A constrained hyperbole, | |
| And the passion to proceed | 15 |
| More from a mistress than a weed. | |
| |
| Sooty retainer to the vine! | |
| Bacchus’ black servant, negro fine! | |
| Sorcerer! that mak’st us dote upon | |
| Thy begrimed complexion, | 20 |
| And, for thy pernicious sake, | |
| More and greater oaths to break | |
| Than reclaimèd lovers take | |
| ’Gainst women! Thou thy siege dost lay | |
| Much, too, in the female way, | 25 |
| While thou suck’st the laboring breath | |
| Faster than kisses, or than death. | |
| |
| Thou in such a cloud dost bind us | |
| That our worst foes cannot find us, | |
| And ill fortune, that would thwart us, | 30 |
| Shoots at rovers, shooting at us; | |
| While each man, through thy heightening steam, | |
| Does like a smoking Etna seem; | |
| And all about us does express | |
| (Fancy and wit in richest dress) | 35 |
| A Sicilian fruitfulness. | |
| |
| Thou through such a mist dost show us | |
| That our best friends do not know us, | |
| And, for those allowed features | |
| Due to reasonable creatures, | 40 |
| Liken’st us to fell chimeras, | |
| Monsters,—that who see us, fear us; | |
| Worse than Cerberus or Geryon, | |
| Or, who first loved a cloud, Ixion. | |
| |
| Bacchus we know, and we allow | 45 |
| His tipsy rites. But what art thou, | |
| That but by reflex canst show | |
| What his deity can do,— | |
| As the false Egyptian spell | |
| Aped the true Hebrew miracle? | 50 |
| Some few vapors thou mayst raise | |
| The weak brain may serve to amaze; | |
| But to the reins and nobler heart | |
| Canst nor life nor heat impart. | |
| |
| Brother of Bacchus, later born! | 55 |
| The old world was sure forlorn, | |
| Wanting thee, that aidest more | |
| The god’s victories than, before, | |
| All his panthers, and the brawls | |
| Of his piping Bacchanals. | 60 |
| These, as stale, we disallow, | |
| Or judge of thee meant: only thou | |
| His true Indian conquest art; | |
| And, for ivy round his dart, | |
| The reformèd god now weaves | 65 |
| A finer thyrsus of thy leaves. | |
| |
| Scent to match thy rich perfume | |
| Chemic art did ne’er presume, | |
| Through her quaint alembic strain, | |
| None so sovereign to the brain. | 70 |
| Nature, that did in thee excel, | |
| Framed again no second smell. | |
| Roses, violets, but toys | |
| For the smaller sort of boys, | |
| Or for greener damsels meant; | 75 |
| Thou art the only manly scent. | |
| |
| Stinkingest of the stinking kind! | |
| Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind! | |
| Africa, that brags her foison, | |
| Breeds no such prodigious poison! | 80 |
| Henbane, nightshade, both together, | |
Hemlock, aconite—
Nay rather, | |
| Plant divine, of rarest virtue; | |
| Blisters on the tongue would hurt you! | |
| ’T was but in a sort I blamed thee; | 85 |
| None e’er prospered who defamed thee; | |
| Irony all, and feigned abuse, | |
| Such as perplexèd lovers use | |
| At a need, when, in despair | |
| To paint forth their fairest fair, | 90 |
| Or in part but to express | |
| That exceeding comeliness | |
| Which their fancies doth so strike, | |
| They borrow language of dislike; | |
| And, instead of dearest Miss, | 95 |
| Jewel, honey, sweetheart, bliss, | |
| And those forms of old admiring, | |
| Call her cockatrice and siren, | |
| Basilisk, and all that ’s evil, | |
| Witch, hyena, mermaid, devil, | 100 |
| Ethiop, wench, and blackamoor, | |
| Monkey, ape, and twenty more; | |
| Friendly trait’ress, loving foe,— | |
| Not that she is truly so, | |
| But no other way they know, | 105 |
| A contentment to express | |
| Borders so upon excess | |
| That they do not rightly wot | |
| Whether it be from pain or not. | |
| |
| Or, as men, constrained to part | 110 |
| With what ’s nearest to their heart, | |
| While their sorrow ’s at the height | |
| Lose discrimination quite, | |
| And their hasty wrath let fall, | |
| To appease their frantic gall, | 115 |
| On the darling thing, whatever, | |
| Whence they feel it death to sever, | |
| Though it be, as they, perforce, | |
| Guiltless of the sad divorce. | |
| |
| For I must (nor let it grieve thee, | 120 |
| Friendliest of plants, that I must) leave thee. | |
| Would do anything but die, | |
| And but seek to extend my days | |
| Long enough to sing thy praise. | |
| But, as she who once hath been | 125 |
| A king’s consort is a queen | |
| Ever after, nor will bate | |
| Any tittle of her state | |
| Though a widow, or divorced, | |
| So I, from thy converse forced, | 130 |
| The old name and style retain, | |
| A right Katherine of Spain; | |
| And a seat, too, ’mongst the joys | |
| Of the blest Tobacco Boys; | |
| Where, though I, by sour physician, | 135 |
| Am debarred the full fruition | |
| Of thy favors, I may catch | |
| Some collateral sweets, and snatch | |
| Sidelong odors, that give life | |
| Like glances from a neighbor’s wife; | 140 |
| And still live in the by-places | |
| And the suburbs of thy graces; | |
| And in thy borders take delight, | |
| An unconquered Canaanite. | |
| |
