From “The Odes of Anacreon”. Ode 9
I pray thee, by the gods above,
Give me the mighty bowl I love,
And let me sing, in wild delight,
„I will — I will be mad to-night!”
Alcmæon once, as legends tell,
Was frenzied by the fiends of hell;
Orestes too, with naked tread,
Frantic paced the mountain-head;
And why? a murder’d mother’s shade
Haunted them still where’er they stray’d.
But ne’er could I a murderer be,
The grape alone shall bleed by me;
Yet can I shout, with wild delight,
„I will — I will be made to-night!”
Alcides’ self, in days of yore,
Imbrued his hands in youthful gore,
And brandish’d, with a maniac joy,
The quiver of the expiring boy:
And Ajax, with tremendous shield,
Infuriate scour’d the guiltless field.
But I, whose hands no weapon ask,
No armour but this joyous flask;
The trophy of whose frantic hours
Is but a scatter’s wreath of flowers,
Even I can sing with wild delight,
„I will — I will be mad to-night.”
Thomas Moore’s other poems:
