Ivy-crown’d Bacchus iterate in thy praises,
O Muse; whose voice all loftiest echoes raises,
And he with all th’ illustrious Seed of Jove
Is join’d in honour, being the fruit of love
To him, and Semele the-great-in-graces;
And from the King his father’s kind embraces
By fair-hair’d Nymphs was taken to the dales
Of Nyssa, and with curious festivals
Given his fair grought, far from his father’s view,
In caves from whence eternal odours flew,
And in high number of the Deities plac’d.
Yet when the many-hymn-given God had past
His Nurses’ cares, in ivies and in bays
All over thicketed, his varied ways
To sylvan coverts evermore He took,
With all his Nurses, whose shrill voices shook
Thickets, in which could no foot’s entry fall,
And he himself made captain of them all.
And so, O grape-abounding Bacchus, be
Ever saluted by my Muse and me!
Give us to spend with spirit our hours out here,
And every hour extend to many a year.