Bacchus and an Ode to Wine

Ode To Wine

Bacco (Bacchus), (1596-1597 for commission to the Grand Duke of Tuscany Ferdinand I),  oil on canvas, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy  

Day-colored wine,

night-colored wine,

wine with purple feet

or wine with topaz blood,

wine,

starry child

of earth,

wine, smooth

as a golden sword,

soft

as lascivious velvet,

wine, spiral-seashelled

and full of wonder,

amorous,

marine;

never has one goblet contained you,

one song, one man,

you are choral, gregarious,

at the least, you must be shared.

At times

you feed on mortal

memories;

your wave carries us

from tomb to tomb,

stonecutter of icy sepulchers,

and we weep

transitory tears;

your

glorious

spring dress

is different,

blood rises through the shoots,

wind incites the day,

nothing is left

of your immutable soul.

Wine

stirs the spring, happiness

bursts through the earth like a plant,

walls crumble,

and rocky cliffs,

chasms close,

as song is born.

A jug of wine, and thou beside me

in the wilderness,

sang the ancient poet.

Let the wine pitcher

add to the kiss of love its own.

The Youth of Bacchus, 1884, oil on canvas, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Private Collection

 My darling, suddenly

the line of your hip

becomes the brimming curve

of the wine goblet,

your breast is the grape cluster,

your nipples are the grapes,

the gleam of spirits lights your hair,

and your navel is a chaste seal

stamped on the vessel of your belly,

your love an inexhaustible

cascade of wine,

light that illuminates my senses,

the earthly splendor of life.

But you are more than love,

the fiery kiss,

the heat of fire,

more than the wine of life;

you are

the community of man,

translucency,

chorus of discipline,

abundance of flowers.

I like on the table,

when we're speaking,

the light of a bottle

of intelligent wine.

Drink it,

and remember in every

drop of gold,

in every topaz glass,

in every purple ladle,

that autumn labored

to fill the vessel with wine;

and in the ritual of his office,

let the simple man remember

to think of the soil and of his duty,

to propagate the canticle of the wine.

The Nature of Bacchus, 1628,  oil on canvas, Nicholas Poussin, The National Gallery, London

~ Pablo Neruda

When I Have Fears

The Arcadian Shepherds, Nicolas Poussin

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink. 


John Keats


Keats was facing his mortal death and his fears were fears we all have in our lives - will we be remembered, will we do all the things in life we wanted to do, be all the things we hoped to be, loved and was loved, had friendships that were beyond measure, got all our creative passions out in caporal form for others to share with us, learned all there was to learn..... we do not want to be alone and we all want to be loved yet so often we waste what time we have over petty or unimportant matters until it is too late.... Live your lives to the fullest every moment. Love with all your heart, laugh with all your soul, and be joyful with your entire being and then you too will have an Arcadian existence like Poussin painted.