Bacchantes In The First Canto

The ring was promise inverse,
To the obscure wood a vow:
Tender high the thyrsus,

Make me tender now.
In honey and in civet musk,
Take your pinstripes down,

Cry out all the dry-husked
Barley tears of winter.
The ones kept fast in banker’s trust,

All storax, sweat and cinders,
Notes or pounds or howls.
Tip your derby to the vintner

For what vintage matters now?
Undrape your suited shoulders,
Unfurl the furrow of my brow.

Perhaps one consults stakeholders,
Meets to assess this wayward slope?
But straying nightly bolder,

We sensible observe the leopard’s coat,
That lexical infinitum spotted,
With lion and with slavering wolf.

Halfway through our lives,
And lying in the bracken,
Your bucking hips on mine,

We forget the question of the damned,
And all the answers of the poets.