An Echo From Horace

TAKE away the dancing-girls, quench the lights, remove
Golden cups and garlands sere, all the feast; away
Lutes and lyres and Lalage; close the gates, above
Write upon the lintel this: Time is done for play!
Thou hast had thy fill of love, eaten, drunk; the show
Ends at last, — ’t was long enough, — time it is to go.

Thou hast played — ah! heart, how long! Past all count were they—
Girls of gold and ivory, bosomed deep, all snow,
Leopard-swift, and velvet-loined, bronze for hair, mild clay
Turning at a touch to flame, tense as a strung bow;
Cruel as the circling hawk, tame at last as dove:
Thou hast had thy fill and more than enough of love.

Thou hast eaten peacocks’ tongues, fed thy carp with slaves,
Nests of Asiatic birds, brought from far Cathay,
Umbrian boars, and mullet roes, snatched from stormy waves,
Half thy father’s lands have gone one strange meal to pay;
For a morsel on thy plate ravished sea and shore;
Thou hast eaten, ’t is enough — thou shalt eat no more.

Thou hast drunk—how hast thou drunk! mighty vats, whole seas,
Vineyards purpling half a world turned to gold thy throat,
Falernian, true Massic, the gods’ own vintages,
Lakes thou swallowed, deep enough galleys tall to float;
Wildness, wonder, wisdom, all, drunkenness divine,
All that dreams within the grape, madness, too, were thine.

Time it is to go and sleep — draw the curtains close —
Tender strings shall lure thee still — mellow flutes be blown,
Still the spring shall shower down on thy couch the rose,
Still the laurels crown your head where you dream alone.
Thou didst play, and thou didst eat, thou hast drunken deep:
Time at last it is to go, time it is to sleep.