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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SILENUS IN PROTEUS, by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Oh those were happy days, heaped up with wine-skins Last Line: To suck the goatskin oftener than the goat? Subject(s): Mythology | |||
Oh those were happy days, heaped up with wine-skins, And ivy-wreathed and thyrsus-swinging days, Swimming like streamy-tressed wanton Bacchantes, When I was with thee, and sat kingly on thee, My ass of asses. Then quite full of wine -- Morning, eve -- and leaning on a fawn, Still pretty steady, and on t'other side Some vinous-lipped nymph of Ariadne, Her bosom a soft cushion for my right: Half dreaming and half waking, both in bliss, I sat upon my ass and laughed at Jove. But thou art dead, my dapple, and I too Shall ride thee soon about the Elysian meadow, Almost a skeleton as well as thou. And why, oh dearest, couldst not keep thy legs That sacred hair, sacred to sacred me? Was this thy gratitude for pats and fondlings, To die like any other mortal ass? Was it for this, oh son of Semele, I taught thee then, a little tumbling one, To suck the goatskin oftener than the goat? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BEDTIME READING FOR THE UNBORN CHILD by KHALED MATTAWA EAST OF CARTHAGE: AN IDYLL by KHALED MATTAWA SEVEN TWILIGHTS: 7 by CONRAD AIKEN VICARIOUS ATONEMENT by RICHARD ALDINGTON NOTHING ABOUT THE MOMENT by LUCILLE CLIFTON VENUS IN A GARDEN by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON AN OFFERING FOR TARA by GARY SNYDER BALLAD OF HUMAN LIFE by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES DEATH'S JEST-BOOK: DIRGE FOR WOLFRAM by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES DEATH'S JEST-BOOK: SAILORS' [OR MARINERS'] SONG by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES |
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