Come! let Mirth our hours employ,
The jolly God inspires;
The rosy juice our bosom fires,
And tunes our souls to joy.
See, great Bacchus now descending,
Gay, with blushing honours crown'd;
Sprightly Mirth and Love attending,
Around him wait,
In smiling state —
Let Echo resound,
Let Echo resound
The joyful news all around.

Fond Mortals come, if love perplex,
In Wine relief you'll find;
Who'd whine for womens giddy sex
More fickle than the wind?
If beauty's bloom thy fancy warms,
Here, see her shine,
Cloath'd in superior charms;
More lovely than the blushing morn,
When first the op'ning day
Bedecks the thorn,
And makes the meadows gay.
Here see her in her crystal shrine;
See and adore; confess her all divine,
The Queen of Love and Joy.
Heed not thy Chloe's scorn—
This sparkling glass,
With winning grace,
Shall ever meet thy fond embrace,
And never, never, never cloy,
No never, never cloy.

Here, Poet! see, Castalia's spring—
Come, give me a bumper, I'll mount to the skies,
Another, another—'Tis done! I arise;
On fancy's wing,
I mount, I sing,
And now, sublime,
Parnassus' lofty top I climb —
But hark! what sounds are these I hear,
Soft as the dream of her in love,
Or Zephyr's whisp'ring thro' the Grove?
And now, more solemn far than fun'ral woe,
The heavy numbers flow!
And now again,
The varied strain,
Grown louder and bolder, strikes quick on the ear,
And thrills thro' ev'ry vein.

'Tis Pindar's song!
His softer notes the fanning gales
Waft across the spicy vales,
While, thro' the air,
Loud whirlwinds bear
The harsher notes along.
Inspir'd by Wine,
He leaves the lazy croud below,
Who never dar'd to peep abroad,
And, mounting to his native sky,
For ever there shall shine.
No more I'll plod
The beaten road;
Like him inspir'd, like him I'll mount on high;
Like his my strain shall sow.

Haste, ye Mortals! leave your sorrow;
Let pleasure crown to day—to morrow
Yield to fate.
Join the universal chorus,
Bacchus reigns,
Ever great;
Bacchus reigns
Ever glorious—
Hark! the joyful groves rebound,
Sporting breezes catch the sound,
And tell to hill and dale around —
"Bacchus reigns"
While far away,
The busy Echoes die away.

I am no rose kissed scarlet by the sun,
Nor pale love-in-a-mist; 
No violet that her purple web has spun, 
Dreaming of amethyst; 
I am no hair-fern, beautiful and brief,
But pale and wan I grow, an olive leaf. 

Pale am I, scentless, grayish-green of leaf; 
But pluck me — lay me in a hand where grief 
Has set her sigil in the hollow palm,
Has set her sigil plain as spring has sealed
The iris of all flowers in the field 
To be her herald when the windflowers yield 
To crowns-imperial and the spreading balm. 

Set me, I say, in this one graven palm, 
And I shall change in all my fibres, — know 
All beauty to whose heights I dare to grow. 
My green shall deepen to an emerald glow, 
Redden to ruby, blush into a rose,
Yea, change and grow as passionately sweet 
As does syringa, dying with the beat 
Of the wild wings of those wild birds that nest 
In the warm whiteness of a woman's breast. 

So shall I breathe, burn, bloom, and wither so 
Held in that hand — for whose love have I grown 
Here on my branch, a gray-green leaf alone; 
To height of heart's desire reach up, and go 
Content, having known the best that I could know.