ave of thee, GREAT PLANT!
Or in my terms relate
Half my love, or half my hate;
For I hate, yet love thee so,
That whichever thing I show,
The plain truth will seem to be
A constrain'd hyperbole,
And the passion to proceed
More from a mistress than a weed.
Sooty retainer to the vine,
Bacchus' black servant, negro fine;
Sorcerer, thou mak'st us dote upon
Thy begrimed complexion,
And for thy pernicious sake,
More and greater oaths to break
Than reclaimed lovers take
'Gainst women: thou thy siege do'st lay
Much too in the female way,
While thou suck'st the lab'ring breath
Faster than kisses or than death.
Thou in such a cloud do'st bind us,
That our worst foes cannot find us.
And ill fortune that would thwart us,
Shoots at rovers shooting at us;
While each man through thy height'ning steam
Does like a smoking AEtna seem,
And all about us does express
(Fancy and wit in richest dress)
A Sicilian fruitfulness.
Thou though such a mist dost show us
That our best friends do not know us,
And for those allowed features
Due to reasonable creatures,
Liken'st us to feel 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,
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?
Some few vapors thou may'st 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,
The old world was sure forlorn,
Wanting thee, that aidest more,
The gods' victories than before
All his panthers, and the brawls,
Of his piping Bacchanals.
These, as stole, we disallow
Or judge of thee meant: only thou
His true Indian conquest art;
And, for ivy round his dart,
The reformed god now weaves
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 sov'reign to the brain.
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;
Thou art the only manly scent.
Stinking'st of the stinking kind,
Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind,
Africa, that brags her fois on
Bree