Classic Poem

BY THE JESUIT VANIERE .

I've taught thus far a vineyard how to plant,
 Wielded the pruning-hook, and plied the hoe,
 And trod the grape; now, Father Bacchus, grant
 Entrance to where, in many a goodly row,
  You keep your treasures safely lodged below.
 Well have I earned the privilege I ask;
  Then proudly down the cellar-steps I go:
 Fain would I terminate my tuneful task,
Pondering before each pipe, communing with each cask.

 Hail, horrors, hail! Welcome, Cimmerian cellar!
 Of liquid bullion inexhausted mine!
 Cumean cave!…no sibyl thy indweller:
  Sole Pythoness, the witchery of wine!
  Pleased I explore this sanctuary of thine,
 An humble votary, whom venturous feet
 Have brought into thy subterranean shrine;
 Its mysteries I reverently greet,
Pacing these solemn vaults in contemplation sweet.

 Armed with a lantern though the poet walks,
 Who dares upon those silent halls intrude,
 He cometh not a pupil of Guy F AUX ,
  O'er treasonable practices to brood
  Within this deep and awful solitude;
  Albeit L OYOLA claims him for a sun,
  Yet, with the kindliest sympathies imbued

 For every human thing heaven shines upon,
Naught in his bosom beats but love and benison.

 He knows nor cares not what be other men's
  Notions concerning orthodox belief;
 Others may seek theology in “D ENS ,”
  He in this grot would rather take a leaf
  From Wisdom's book, and of existence brief
 Learn not to waste in empty jars the span.
  If jars there must be in this vale of grief,
 Let them be full ones; let the flowing can
Reign umpire of disputes, uniting mau with man.

 Twere better thus than in collegiate hall,
  Where wrangling pedants and dull ponderous tomes
 Build up Divinity's dark arsenal,
  Grope in the gloom with controversial gnomes—
  Geneva's gospel still at war with Rome's:
 Better to bury discord and dissent
 In the calm cellar's peaceful catacombs,
 Than on dogmatic bickerings intent,
Poison the pleasing hours for man's enjoyment meant.

 Doth yonder cask of B URGUNDY repine,
 That some prefer his brother of B ORDEAUX ?

 Is old G ARUMNA jealous of the R HINE ?
  Gaul, of the grape Germanic vineyards grow?
  Doth X ERES deem bright L ACHRYMA his foe?
 On the calm banks that fringe the blue M OSELLE ,
  On L EMAN'S margin, on the plains of P O ,
Pure from one common sky these dew-drops fell.
Hast thou preserved the juice in purity? 'Tis well!

 Lessons of love, and light, and liberty,
  Lurk in these wooden volumes. Freedom's code
 Lies there, and pity's charter. Poetry
  And genius make their favourite abode
  In double range of goodly puncheons stowed;
 Whence welling up freely, as from a fount,
  The flood of fancy in all time has flowed,
 Gushing with more exuberance, I count,
Than from Pierian spring on Greece's fabled mount.

 School of Athenian eloquence! did not
  Demosthenes, half-tonsured, love to pass
  Winters in such preparatory grot,
  His topics there in fit array to class,
  And stores of wit and argument amass?
 Hath not another Greek of late arisen,
  Whose eloquence partaketh of the glass,
 Whose nose and tropes with rival radiance glisten,
And unto whom the Peers night after night must listen?

 Say not that wine hath bred dissensions—wars;
  Charge not the grape, calumnious, with the blame
 Of murdered Clytus. Lapithæ, Centaurs,
  Drunkards of every age, will aye defame
  The innocent vine to palliate their shame.
 O Thyrsus, magic wand! thou mak'st appear
  Man in his own true colours—vice proclaim
 Its infamy—sin its foul figure rear,
Like the recumbent toad touched by Ithuriel's spear!

 A savage may the glorious sun revile,
  And shoot his arrows at the god of day;
 Th' ungrateful Æthiop on thy banks, O Nile!
  With barbarous shout and insult may repay
  Apollo for his vivifying ray,
 Unheeded by the god, whose fiery team
  Prances along the sky's immortal way;
 While from his brow, flood-like, the bounteous beam
Bursts on the stupid slaves who gracelessly blaspheme.

 That savage outcry some attempt to ape,
  Loading old Bacchus with absurd abuse;
 But, pitying them, the father of the grape,
  And conscious of their intellect obtuse,
  Tells them to go (for answer) to the juice:
 Meantime the god, whom fools would fain annoy,
  Rides on a cask, and, of his wine profuse,
 Sends up to earth the flood without alloy,
Whence round the general globe circles the cup of joy.

 Hard was thy fate, much-injur'd H YLAS ! whom
  The roguish Naiads of the fount entrapped;
 Thine was, in sooth, a melancholy doom—
  In liquid robes for wint'ry wardrobe wrapped,
  And “in Elysium” of spring-water “lapped!”
 Better if hither thou hadst been enticed,
  Where casks abound and generous wine is tapped;
Thou would'st not feel, as now, thy limbs all iced,
But deem thyself in truth blest and imparadised.

 A Roman king—the second of the series—
  N UMA , who reigned upon Mount P ALATINE ,
 Possessed a private grotto called Egeria's;
 Where, being in the legislative line,
  He kept an oracle men deemed divine.
 What nymph it was from whom his “law” he got
  None ever knew; but jars, that smelt of wine,
 Have lately been discovered in a grot
Of that Egerian vale. Was this the nymph? God wot.

 Here would I dwell! Oblivious! aya shut out
  Passions and pangs that plague the human heart,
 Content to range this goodly grot throughout,
  Loth, like the lotus-eater, to depart,
 Deeming this cave of joy the genuine mart;
  C ELLAR , though dark and dreary, yet I ween
  Dépót of brightest intellect thou art!
 Calm reservoir of sentiment serene!
Miscellany of mind! wit's GLORIOUS MAGAZINE !