Classic Poem

He who scorns the tuneful measure
Is a lout,
Trampling down melodious pleasure
With a shout,
Like the Moenads Corybantic,
Who would tear
Beauty's eyelids in their frantic,
Wild despair.
Let the Muses nine deny him,
As a churl
Only hut-ward fit to hie him,
From the whirl
Of the striving cadence leading
Up the dance,
Lads and lasses gaily speeding
In its trance.
Cornu Mirum's brassy snorting
Calls the kine,
But Apollo's lyre exhorting
The divine
Wavy swaying to its playing
Is a bliss,
Kindling summer-lightnings straying
Till they kiss
Walt in Belvedere Apollo
Sees a boy
Only fit the chase to follow.
With youth's joy.
Fool! yon tankard's crystal shimmer
Hides a wine
Fit for Juno, or the dimmer
Proserpine.
And the Bow-god, lithe and slender,
Hath a soul,
Mortal feelings fierce or tender
To control.
Sparks your darling Vulcan dashes
At each blow,
Only gleam to sink in ashes
Down below,
While the Day-god's silver lyre
Trills its paean
To the ultramundanc choir
Empyrean,
Voicing homage to the warder,
Who on high
Out of chaos marshals order
In the sky.