University of Virginia Library

Search this document 
Bacchanalia

or A Description of a Drunken Club. A Poem [by Charles Darby]

collapse section 
collapse section 
 I. 
 II. 
 III. 
 IV. 
 V. 
 VI. 
 VII. 
 VIII. 
 IX. 
 X. 
 XI. 
 XII. 
 XIII. 
 XIV. 
 XV. 
 XVI. 
 XVII. 
 XVIII. 
 XIX. 
 XX. 
 XXI. 
  


1

It was my hap Spectator once to be,
As I unseen, in secret Angle, sate,
Of that unmanly Crowd,
Who, with Wits low, and Voices loud,
Were met to Celebrate,
In Evening late,
The Bacchanalian Solemnity.
If what I then
Or heard, or saw, I here relate agen,
Accuse me not of Incivility,
In blabbing privacy;
Since all men know, that in those Mysteries,
(Quite different from other Deities)
No man obliged is to secresie.
Yea, if I should Conceal,
'Twould be in vain:
That pervious Tribe would their own Acts reveal,
Since Wine (transparent thing!) no secret can retain.