Select poems of Edward Hovel Thurlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

The grape, now ripe and dusky, bear
Vigorous men, and virgins fair;
But only males the vintage throw
Into the mighty vat below:
Only males may tread the vine,
And thence express the purple wine;
Greatly 'plauding, all the while,
The ripe God, in the vintage style,
In hymns, that to the vat belong,
Praising him, who makes them strong,
Jocund into the vessels spy,
Where youthful Bacchus foameth high!

And then some old man, as is meet,
Dances gay with trembling feet;
And shakes, the while, his hoary hair,
Forgetting of his age the care:

And then a youth, and wet with wine,
And giv'n to love, by close design
Surprizes a ripe maiden, laid
All a-loose upon the shade
Of leaves, and heavy-sunk in sleep—
A second vintage thinks to reap:
But, that of her not understood
Proves her no less fair, than good.

But, yet, the God, who gives the grape,
Lets her not so well escape;
For Bacchus, whose great praise be sung!
Wildly rages with the young.