"Give me to send the laughing bowl around, / My soul in Bacchus' pleasing fetters bound."
— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)
Author
Work Title
Publisher
T. J. Mathias
Date
1814
Metaphor
"Give me to send the laughing bowl around, / My soul in Bacchus' pleasing fetters bound."
Metaphor in Context
Long as of youth the joyous hours remain,
Me may Castalia's sweet recess detain,
Fast by the umbrageous vale lulled to repose,
Where Aganippe warbles as it flows;
Or roused by sprightly sounds from out the trance,
I'd in the ring knit hands and join the Muses' dance.
Give me to send the laughing bowl around,
My soul in Bacchus' pleasing fetters bound;
Let on this head unfading flowers reside,
There bloom the vernal rose's earliest pride;
And when, our flames commissioned to destroy,
Age step 'twixt love and me, and intercept our joy;
When my changed head these locks no more shall know,
And all its jetty honours turn to snow;
Then let me rightly spell of nature's ways.
(ll. 5-19, p. 26)
Me may Castalia's sweet recess detain,
Fast by the umbrageous vale lulled to repose,
Where Aganippe warbles as it flows;
Or roused by sprightly sounds from out the trance,
I'd in the ring knit hands and join the Muses' dance.
Give me to send the laughing bowl around,
My soul in Bacchus' pleasing fetters bound;
Let on this head unfading flowers reside,
There bloom the vernal rose's earliest pride;
And when, our flames commissioned to destroy,
Age step 'twixt love and me, and intercept our joy;
When my changed head these locks no more shall know,
And all its jetty honours turn to snow;
Then let me rightly spell of nature's ways.
(ll. 5-19, p. 26)
Categories
Provenance
HDIS (Poetry)
Citation
Ed. Roger Lonsdale. The Poems of Thomas Gray, William Collins, and Oliver Goldsmith (London and New York: Longman and Norton: 1972).
Date of Entry
11/10/2003
Date of Review
06/27/2011
