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Title: The Jovial Priest's Confession
Author: Leigh Hunt [
More Titles by Hunt]
[Translated from The Latin of Walter De Mapes, Time of Henry II]
I devise to end my days--in a tavern drinking,
May some Christian hold for me--the glass when I am shrinking.
That the cherubim may cry--when they see me sinking,
God be merciful to a soul--of this gentleman's way of thinking.
A glass of wine amazingly--enlighteneth one's intervals;
'Tis wings bedewed with nectar--that fly up to supernals;
Bottles cracked in taverns--have much the sweeter kernels,
Than the sups allowed to us--in the college journals.
Every one by nature hath--a mold which he was cast in;
I happen to be one of those--who never could write fasting;
By a single little boy--I should be surpass'd in
Writing so: I'd just as lief--be buried; tomb'd and grass'd in.
Every one by nature hath--a gift too, a dotation:
I, when I make verses--do get the inspiration
Of the very best of wine--that comes into the nation:
It maketh sermons to astound--for edification.
Just as liquor floeth good--floweth forth my lay so;
But I must moreover eat--or I could not say so;
Naught it availeth inwardly--should I write all day so;
But with God's grace after meat--I beat Ovidius Naso.
Neither is there given to me--prophetic animation,
Unless when I have eat and drank--yea, ev'n to saturation,
Then in my upper story--hath Bacchus domination
And Phoebus rushes into me, and beggareth all relation.
-THE END-
Leigh Hunt's poem: The Jovial Priest's Confession
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