DRINKING SONG. INSCRIPTION FOR AN ANTIQUE PITCHER. COME, old friend! sit down and listen! How the waters laugh and glisten Old Silenus, bloated, drunken, Led by his inebriate Satyrs; Fauns with youthful Bacchus follow; And possessing youth eternal. Round about him, fair Bacchantes, Bearing cymbals, flutes, and thyrses, Wild from Naxian groves, or Zante's Vineyards, sing delirious verses. Thus he won, through all the nations, Vines for banners, ploughs for armour. Judged by no o'erzealous rigour, These are ancient ethnic revels, Now to rivulets from the mountains Claudius, though he sang of flagons And huge tankards filled with Rhenish, From that fiery blood of dragons Never would his own replenish. Even Redi, though he chanted Then with water fill the pitcher Light upon Lucullus' tables. Come, old friend, sit down and listen! THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS. "L'eternité est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit sans cesse ces deux mots seulement, dans le silence des tambeaux: "Toujours! jamais! Jamais! toujours !"-JACQUES BRIDAINE. SOMEWHAT back from the village street Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw; Never-for ever!" Half-way up the stairs it stands, And points and beckons with its hands From its case of massive oak, Like a monk, who, under his cloak, Crosses himself, and sighs, alas! With sorrowful voice to all who pass,— "For ever-never! Never-for ever!" By day its voice is low and light; And seems to say, at each chamber-door,— "For ever-never! Never-for ever!" Through days of sorrow and of mirth, Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood, Never-for ever!" In that mansion used to be His great fires up the chimney roared; That warning time-piece never ceased,— Never-for ever!" |