Poems (Cook)/Song of the Goblet

by Eliza Cook

SONG OF THE GOBLET.

I have kept my place at the rich man's board
 For many a waning night;
Where streams of dazzling splendour poured
 Their galaxy of light:
No wilder revelry has rung
 Than where my home has been;
All that the bard of Teos sung,
 Has the golden Goblet seen:
And what I could tell, full many might deem
A fable of fancy, or tale of a dream.

I have beheld a courteous band
 Sit round in bright array;
Their voices firm, their words all bland,
 And brows like a cloudless day:
But soon the guests were led by the host
 To dash out Reason's lamp;
And then God's noble image had lost
 The fineness of its stamp:
And their sober cheeks have blush'd to hear
What they told p'er to me without shame or fear.

Their loud and tuneless laugh would tell
 Of a hot and reeling brain;
Their right arms trembled, and red wine fell
 Like blood on a battle-plain.
The youth would play the chattering ape,
 And the gray-hair'd one would let
The foul and sickening jest escape
 Till I've loathed the lips I've met;
And the swine in the dust, or the wolf on its prey,
Gave less of sheer disgust than they.

The drunkard has fill'd me again and again
 'Mid the roar of a frantic din;
Till the starting eyeballs told his brain.
 Was an Etna pile within
Oh! sad is the work that I have done
 In the hands of the sot and fool;
Cursed and dark is the fame I have won,
 As Death's most powerful tool:
And I own that those who greet my rim
Too oft, will find their bane on the brim.

But all the golden Goblet has wrought
 Is not of the evil kind;
I have helped the creature of mighty thought,
 And quicken'd the Godlike mind.
As gems of first water may lie in the shade,
 And no lustre be known to live,
Till the kiss of the noontide beam has betray'd
 What a glorious sheen they can give:
So, the breast may hold fire that none can see,
Till it meet the sun-ray shed by me.

I have burst the spirit's moody trance,
 And woke it to mirth and wit;
Till the soul would dance in every glance
 Of eyes that were rapture-lit.
I have heard the bosom all warm and rife
 With friendship, offer up
Its faith in heaven, its hope on earth,
 With the name it breathed in the cup!
And I was proud to seal the bond
Of the truly great and the firmly fond.

I have served to raise the shivering form
 That sunk in the driving gale;
I have fann'd the flame that famine and storm
 Had done their worst to pale.
The stagnant vein has been curdled and cold
 As the marble's icy streak;
But I have come, and the tide hath roll'd
 Right on to the heart and cheek;
And bursting words from a grateful breast
Have told the golden Goblet was blest.

Oh! Heaven forbid that bar or ban
 Should be thrown on the draught I bear;
But woful it is that senseless man
 Will brand me with sin and despair.
Use me wisely, and I will lend
 A joy ye may cherish and praise;
But love me too well, and my potion shall send
 A burning blight on your days.
This is the strain I sing as ye fill—
"Beware! the Goblet can cheer or kill."