Bacchanalia or A Description of a Drunken Club. A Poem [by Charles Darby] |
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| XXI. |
 | Bacchanalia |  |
So slept they sound; but whilst they slept,
Nature, which all this while, had kept
Her last reserve of strength,
In Stomachs mouth, where, Helmont saith,
The Soul its chiefest Mansion hath,
Began at length
To kick, and frisk, and stoutly strove
To throw the Liquid Rider off.
For now Her Case, like Mariners, was grown,
In leaky Ship, She must or pump, or drown.
Or whether that the Wine, which, till this time,
Was wont to dwell in Cellar's cooler Clime,
Now put in Stomachs boiling-Pot,
Found its new Habitation too hot?
What e're it was, the Floods gusht out
From ev'ry spout,
With such a force; they made a fulsome fray.
One, who athwart his Neighbour lay,
Did right into his Pocket disembogue;
For which the other would have call'd him Rogue,
But that his forestall'd mouth (brawls to prevent)
Replenisht was with the same Element.
I'th' next mans face Another spues,
Who doth, with nimble Repartee, retort
His own, and his Assailants juice,
And so returns him double for't.
One with a Horizontal mouth,
Discharges up into the Air,
Which falls again in Perpendicular:
Much like those Clouds, in Sea, that's South,
Which, in a Lump, descend, and quite
O're-whelm the Ship, on which they chance to light:
The Floor with such a Deluge was o'reslown,
As would infallibly have ran
Quite through, and to it's native Cellar gone,
As Rivers Circulate to th' Ocean:
Had it not been incrassate with a scum,
Which did, for Company, from Stomach come.
Nor was this all. The surly Element,
With Orall Channels not content,
Reverberates; and downward finds a Vent.
Which my Nice Muse to tell forbears,
And begs, for what is past, the pardon of your Ears.
Nature, which all this while, had kept
Her last reserve of strength,
In Stomachs mouth, where, Helmont saith,
The Soul its chiefest Mansion hath,
Began at length
To kick, and frisk, and stoutly strove
To throw the Liquid Rider off.
For now Her Case, like Mariners, was grown,
In leaky Ship, She must or pump, or drown.
Or whether that the Wine, which, till this time,
Was wont to dwell in Cellar's cooler Clime,
Now put in Stomachs boiling-Pot,
Found its new Habitation too hot?
What e're it was, the Floods gusht out
From ev'ry spout,
With such a force; they made a fulsome fray.
One, who athwart his Neighbour lay,
Did right into his Pocket disembogue;
For which the other would have call'd him Rogue,
But that his forestall'd mouth (brawls to prevent)
Replenisht was with the same Element.
I'th' next mans face Another spues,
Who doth, with nimble Repartee, retort
His own, and his Assailants juice,
And so returns him double for't.
One with a Horizontal mouth,
Discharges up into the Air,
13
Much like those Clouds, in Sea, that's South,
Which, in a Lump, descend, and quite
O're-whelm the Ship, on which they chance to light:
The Floor with such a Deluge was o'reslown,
As would infallibly have ran
Quite through, and to it's native Cellar gone,
As Rivers Circulate to th' Ocean:
Had it not been incrassate with a scum,
Which did, for Company, from Stomach come.
Nor was this all. The surly Element,
With Orall Channels not content,
Reverberates; and downward finds a Vent.
Which my Nice Muse to tell forbears,
And begs, for what is past, the pardon of your Ears.
| Bacchanalia | |