Sweet Chloe, by Edward Lysaght

By Edward Lysaght

From The Cabinet of Irish Literature, Volume 2, edited by Charles A. Read.

Sweet Chloe advised me, in accents divine,
The joys of the bowl to surrender;
Nor lose, in the turbid excesses of wine,
Delights more ecstatic and tender;
She bade me no longer in vineyards to bask,
Or stagger, at orgies, the dupe of a flask,
For the sigh of a sot's but the scent of the cask,
And a bubble the bliss of the bottle.

To a soul that's exhausted, or sterile, or dry,
The juice of the grape may be wanted;
But mine is reviv'd by a love-beaming eye,
And with fancy's gay flow'rets enchanted.
Oh! who but an owl would a garland entwine
Of Bacchus's ivy—and myrtle resign?
Yield the odours of love, for the vapours of wine,
And Chloe's kind kiss for a bottle!

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