Classic Poem

ODE XLIX.

When Bacchus, Jove's immortal boy,
The rosy harbinger of joy,
Who, with the sunshine of the bowl,
Thaws the winter of our soul —
When to my inmost core he glides,
And bathes it with his ruby tides,
A flow of joy, a lively heat,
Fires, my brain, and wings my feet,
Calling up round me visions known
To lovers of the bowl alone.

Sing, sing of love, let music's sound
In melting cadence float around,
While, my young Venus, thou and I
Responsive to its murmurs sigh.
Then, waking from our blissful trance,
Again we 'll sport, again we 'll dance.