Still burning, let me cast the cup of youth aside, Or else, with one deep, purple draught, Crush it and toss its unregretted pieces wide To windwards, and the latter days abide. What if the spicery of summer be forspent, And night's own argent madness gone? The shining Bacchanal of youth was always rent By cries the circling dark and stars had sent. And tho' warm-lidded lechery was sweet, I knew The discontent of higher dreams, And how the red-lipped sweetness changed and staled and grew A thing the dewy dancers feared to view. O loveliest of all the wreathed revellers, Break, break the cup, the wine forswear. Courageous, thee and me a lordlier vintage stirs -- The blood of life's unraptured warriors. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MATER IN EXTREMIS by JEAN STARR UNTERMEYER UPON HIS SPANIEL [SPANIELL] TRACIE by ROBERT HERRICK TAM I' THE KIRK by VIOLET JACOB THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND MORE by ROBERT MORRIS EXPECTATION by GLADYS BRIERLY ASHOUR TWILIGHT ON THE DESERT by ETHEL FRANCES BARNARD HYMN FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF HARTFORD AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY by JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD |