Anacreontics (Benson, 1872)/Gerace Rosso
GERACE ROSSO.
(November, 13, 1869.)
Three little bottles came by express;
Two were stolen,[1] so there were two less.
We drank the last one of of the three
In a merry, merry company.
Two for the pencil and one for the pen,
One for the nightingale's throat, and then
One who pours (as Jenkins says)
Her soul on the keys whene'er she plays,
What shall we say of the last? That she
Is just as good as she can be.
Our Western bard so learned and neat,
And mellow and sweet,
And brimming over with quaint conceit,
Who has sung us lays of every land,
On every theme from the light to the grand,
Wishing well to me and mine,
Sends me this Sicilian wine.
Nine-and-twenty years ago,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,[2]
Passing delicate stems about,
Poured this wine for Hawthorne out.
Carl Benson, (How we apples swim!)
To finish the flask assisted him.
Nine-and-twenty years have passed,
Joy and sorrow, sun and rain;
Now this prince of good-and-Long-fellows
Sends me some of his wine again.
Oedenburger is very good hock,
And goes with oysters very well;
Let no man at dry Sillery mock,
Or say that Ofner is a sell.
(One for the soup and one for the fish;
Every bottle to its dish.)
These we have, and ask no more,
When the guests are six, than bottles four.
So, as the crowning cup of the feast,
Gerace Rosso comes, last, not least.
He shall have the latest word;
He shall wait on our country's bird,
Our country's bird, our glory and pride,
Renowned and honored far and wide.
(I don't mean the eagle, so often stuck
Into useless verse, but the canvas-back duck.)
He speaks to the rest of joy and gladness;
He speaks to me of beauty and madness,[3]
Checquered thoughts he brings to me,
That fervent wine of Sicily.
"When the wine is in the wit is out."
The ancient saying is true no doubt.
(Not in the sense that those would read,
Perverted by aquarian creed;)
For if a man has any wit,
Good liquor takes good hold of it,
And brings it out in proper place,
The festive board to grace.
This hath been said in various shapes;
Better by none than shrewd DeMapes—
Poculis accenditur animi lucerna
Cor imbutum nectare volat ad superna.
"The lantern of the intellect is lighted by the cup,
The spirit soaked in nectar to Olympus mounteth up."
But what that day
We were moved to say,
I cannot, cannot tell,
Not I—although
We were far from slow,
And talked uncommonly well;
For repartee, and pun, and laughter
Were carried away by what came after;
And all the evening dissolved for me
In a stream of molten melody,
That floats
In notes,
Out-rolled
Like liquid gold.
That gushing strain, so sweet and clear,
Moves a heart of stone to hear,
"Riqui, Riqui, Riqui, Riqui."
When the mocking bird can speak, he
Talks just so,
I know.
- ↑ Namely, by the expressmen, a catastrophe not uncommon in our corporation-ridden country.
- ↑ It is to be hoped that the reader will appreciate the simple beauty of this couplet. The author considers it nearly up to Tupper and a long way ahead of Dr. Holland.
- ↑ Countess Gerace was a beautiful woman. Her cousin, the Duke of Terranova, took to politics late in life and went mad.