Bacchus we know, and we allow
  His tipsy rites.  But what art thou,
  That but by reflex canst show
  What his deity can do,
  As the false Egyptian spell
  Aped the true Hebrew miracle,
  Some few vapors thou mayst raise
  The weak brain may serve to amaze,
  But to the reins and nobler heart
  Canst nor life nor heat impart.

    Brother of Bacchus, later born,
  The Old World was sure forlorn
  Wanting thee, that aidest more
  The god’s victories than before
  All his panthers, and the brawls
  Of his piping Bacchanals. 
  These, as stale, we disallow,
  Or judge of thee meant; only thou
  His true Indian conquest art;
  And for ivy round his dart
  The reformed god now weaves
  A finer thyrsus of thy leaves.

    Scent to match thy rich perfume
  Chemic art did ne’er presume,
  Through her quaint alembic strain,
  None so sov’reign to the brain. 
  Nature, that did in thee excel,
  Framed again no second smell. 
  Roses, violets, but toys
  For the smaller sort of boys,
  Or for greener damsels meant;
  Thou art the only manly scent.

  Stinking’st of the stinking kind,

Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind,
Africa, that brags her foison,
Breeds no such prodigious poison,
Henbane, nightshade, both together,
Hemlock, aconite—­

            Nay, rather,
  Plant divine, of rarest virtue;
  Blisters on the tongue would hurt you. 
  ’Twas but in a sort I blamed thee;
  None e’er prosper’d who defamed thee;
  Irony all, and feign’d abuse,
  Such as perplex’d lovers use
  At a need when, in despair
  To paint forth their fairest fair,
  Or in part but to express
  That exceeding comeliness
  Which their fancies doth so strike,
  They borrow language of dislike;
  And, instead of Dearest Miss,
  Jewel, Honey, Sweetheart, Bliss,
  And those forms of old admiring,
  Call her Cockatrice and Siren,
  Basilisk, and all that’s evil,
  Witch, Hyena, Mermaid, Devil,
  Ethiop, Wench, and Blackamore,
  Monkey, Ape, and twenty more,
  Friendly Trait’ress, loving Foe,—­
  Not that she is truly so,
  But no other way they know
  A contentment to express,
  Borders so upon excess
  That they do not rightly wot
  Whether it be pain or not.

    Or as men, constrain’d to part
  With what’s nearest to their heart. 
  While their sorrow’s at the height
  Lose discrimination quite,
  And their hasty wrath let fall,
  To appease their frantic gall,
  On the darling thing whatever
  Whence they feel it death to sever,
  Though it be, as they, perforce,
  Guiltless of the sad divorce.