Classic Poem

FIRST CUPBEARER

Drink of this cup — Osiris sips
The same in his halls below;
And the same he gives, to cool the lips
Of the dead, who downward go.

Drink of this cup — the water within
Is fresh from Lethe's stream;
'T will make the past, with all its sin,
And all its pain and sorrows, seem
Like a long forgotten dream!

The pleasure, whose charms
Are steeped in woe;
The knowledge, that harms
The soul to know;

The hope, that bright
As the lake of the waste,
Allures the sight
And mocks the taste;

The love, that binds
Its innocent wreath,
Where the serpent winds
In venom beneath! —

All that of evil or false, by thee
Hath ever been known or seen,
Shalt melt away in this cup, and be
Forgot as it never had been!

SECOND CUPBEARER ,

Drink of this cup — when Isis led
Her boy of old to the beaming sky,
She mingled a draught divine and said. —
" Drink of this cup, thou 'lt never die! "

Thus do I say and sing to thee,
Heir of that boundless heaven on high,
Though frail and fallen and lost thou be,
" Drink of this cup, thou 'lt never die! "
. . . . . . .

And Memory, too, with her dreams shall coine,
Dreams of a former, happier day,
When heaven was still the spirit's home,
And her wings had not yet fallen away.

Glimpses of glory ne'er forgot,
That tell, like gleams on a sunset sea,
What once hath been, what now is not.
But oh! what again shall brightly be! "