Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SICILIAN WINE, by BAYARD TAYLOR Poet's Biography First Line: I've drunk sicilia's crimson wine! Last Line: To mount thy car and ride the heavens with thee! Alternate Author Name(s): Taylor, James Bayard Subject(s): Drinks & Drinking; Goddesses & Gods; Love; Mythology; Wine | ||||||||
I'VE drunk Sicilia's crimson wine! The blazing vintage pressed From grapes on Etna's breast, What time the mellowing autumn sun did shine: I've drunk the wine! I feel its blood divine Poured on the sluggish tide of mine, Till, kindling slow, Its fountains glow With the light that swims On their trembling brims, And a molten sunrise floods my limbs! What do I here? I've drunk the wine, And lo! the bright blue heaven is clear Above the ocean's bluer sphere, Seen through the long arcades of pine, Inwoven and arched with vine! The glades are green below; The temple shines afar; Above, old Etna's snow Sparkles with many an icy star: I see the mountain and its marble wall, Where gleaming waters fall And voices call, Singing and calling Like chorals falling Through pearly doors of some Olympian hall, Where Love holds bacchanal. Sicilian wine! Sicilian wine! Summer, and Music, and Song divine Are thine, -- all thine! A sweet wind over the roses plays; The wild bee hums at my languid ear; The mute-winged moth serenely strays On the downy atmosphere, Like hovering Sleep, that overweighs My lids with his shadow, yet comes not near. Who'll share with me this languor? With me the juice of Etna sip? Who press the goblet's lip, Refusing mine the while with love's enchanting anger? Would I were young Adonis now! With what an ardor bold Within my arms I'd fold Fair Aphrodite of Idalian mould, And let the locks that hide her gleaming brow Fall o'er my shoulder as she lay With the fair swell of her immortal breast Upon my bosom pressed, Giving Olympian thrills to its enamored clay! Bacchus and Pan have fled: No heavy Satyr crushes with his tread The verdure of the meadow ground, But in their stead The Nymphs are leading a bewildering round, Vivid and light, as o'er some flowering rise A dance of butterflies, Their tossing hair with slender lilies crowned, And greener ivy than o'erran The brows of Bacchus and the reed of Pan! I faint, I die: The flames expire, That made my blood a lurid fire: Steeped in delicious weariness I lie. Oh lay me in some pearled shell, Soft-balanced on the rippling sea, Where sweet, cheek-kissing airs may wave Their fresh wings over me; Let me be wafted with the swell Of Nereid voices: let no billow rave To break the cool green crystal of the sea. For I will wander free Past the blue islands and the fading shores, To Calpe and the far Azores, And still beyond, and wide away, Beneath the dazzling wings of tropic day, Where, on unruffled seas, Sleep the green isles of the Hesperides The Triton's trumpet calls: I hear, I wake, I rise: The sound peals up the skies And mellowed Echo falls In answer back from Heaven's cerulean walls. Give me the lyre that Orpheus played upon, Or bright Hyperion, -- Nay, rather come, thou of the mighty bow, Come thou below, Leaving thy steeds unharnessed go! Sing as thou wilt, my voice shall dare to follow, And I will sun me in thine awful glow, Divine Apollo! Then thou thy lute shalt twine With Bacchic tendrils of the glorious vine That gave Sicilian wine: And henceforth when the breezes run Over its clusters, ripening in the sun, The leaves shall still be playing, Unto thy lute its melody repaying, And I, that quaff, shall evermore be free To mount thy car and ride the heavens with thee! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A CUP OF TREMBLINGS by JOHN HOLLANDER VINTAGE ABSENCE by JOHN HOLLANDER SENT WITH A BOTTLE OF BURGUNDY FOR A BIRTHDAY by JOHN HOLLANDER TO A CIVIL SERVANT by EDMUND JOHN ARMSTRONG WINE by FRIEDRICH MARTIN VON BODENSTEDT THE GOOD FELLOW by ALEXANDER BROME WHEN A WOMAN LOVES A MAN by DAVID LEHMAN BEDOUIN [LOVE] SONG by BAYARD TAYLOR NATIONAL ODE; INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, PHILADELPHIA by BAYARD TAYLOR |
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