I See Before Me A Carnival-How Many Images! Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

I see before me a carnival-how many images!
The throng in festive mood-though faces pale
And sad and wrinkled I see too!

Here the masque cometh-here the yew
Tall lank and pining -from what cemetery
Did you unroot it?
A sadness in the carnival it bringeth
That after joy come tears – it showeth!

Here cometh look he cometh Morpheus
Ah! how need I your aching medicine
To cool my heated forehead and in sleep
Cloth my reluctant limbs, and dreams.

And then wise Bacchus comes all ruddy-faced
And in his hand a flagon hot he bears
High he lifts up his cheeks the redder turn
And from his mouth the winy aromas come:
And in his voice he tries to speak and fails
Better so!
And in his train the gaudy carnival
Of fauns and satyrs and dryads come
All kiss and drink in merriment
And in their hands the flagons turn and rise.

Along, along the masques in merriment go
And one by one they pass the merry carnival
For so is life it reigns cyclical:
Now up now down now funeral then carnival
And we continue to walk and eat and talk
And ride and sleep and love and hate
A hundred things we are and do and yet
We find the sand through our fingers passed
And in the glass we see the sands of years
How did they pass we say?
But there they are.

But now let all these musings go!
The carnival still goes in merriment
And now with Bacchus I will dance and go
Let night come or whatever be let it!