Classic Poem

The wearied vintagers their tasks resign
With voices ringing in eve's tremulous air,
And as the women toward the wine-press fare,
They sing mid raillery and gesturing sign.

All white with flying swans the skies now shine,
As Naxos saw, with fume like censers bear,
When at the orgies sat the Cretan where
The Tamer reveled in the gladdening wine.

But Dionysus, with his thyrsus bright,
Who beasts and Gods made subject to his might,
Girds the wreathed yoke on panther nevermore;

Yet Autumn, daughter of the Sun, still twines
In dark and golden tresses, as of yore,
The sanguine leaves and branches of the vines.