Bacchanalia or A Description of a Drunken Club. A Poem [by Charles Darby] |
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| XXI. |
 | Bacchanalia |  |
The Actors in this Scene were not of one
Age, Humour, Figure, or Condition.
See One with hollow Cheeks, meagre, and lean,
By Sipping-Hectick, e'ne consumed quite,
As he a Skeleton had been,
Enough to put Deaths self into a fright:
Only in this he seem'd to differ from the Dead,
He lifted oft his Hand up to his Head,
Another swoln up with Hydropick fat,
Out-strutting Eyes, and Paunch that so o're grows,
He might vie Bellies with the very Butt,
From whence the precious Liquor flows.
One comes with Crimson face,
More red than Erysipelas;
Another pale, through Vital heat struck dead,
By greater heat of Wine, extinguished.
Yet is the Case of both, much what the same,
Nature, in One, is on a flame,
And, in the Other, all in Ashes laid.
One young as Hebe, smooth as Ganimede,
Another old Silenus seems to be,
With trembling-Hand, and palsie-Head,
And lame on Feet, with Gowty Malady;
One Grave, and Saturnine,
Another jolly, brisk, and fine,
He seem'd not much unlike the lusty God of Wine.
Age, Humour, Figure, or Condition.
See One with hollow Cheeks, meagre, and lean,
By Sipping-Hectick, e'ne consumed quite,
As he a Skeleton had been,
Enough to put Deaths self into a fright:
2
He lifted oft his Hand up to his Head,
Another swoln up with Hydropick fat,
Out-strutting Eyes, and Paunch that so o're grows,
He might vie Bellies with the very Butt,
From whence the precious Liquor flows.
One comes with Crimson face,
More red than Erysipelas;
Another pale, through Vital heat struck dead,
By greater heat of Wine, extinguished.
Yet is the Case of both, much what the same,
Nature, in One, is on a flame,
And, in the Other, all in Ashes laid.
One young as Hebe, smooth as Ganimede,
Another old Silenus seems to be,
With trembling-Hand, and palsie-Head,
And lame on Feet, with Gowty Malady;
One Grave, and Saturnine,
Another jolly, brisk, and fine,
He seem'd not much unlike the lusty God of Wine.
| Bacchanalia | |