Be he who first dared upon Lecorè's plain

To take my green children and plant them in pain. The goats and the cattle

Get into the bowers;

And sleets with a rattle

Come trampling in showers.

But lauded,

Applauded,

With laurels rewarded,

Be the hero who first in the vineyards divine,

Of Petrarch and Castello

Planted first the Moscadello.

Now we're here in mirth and clover,

Quaff this jewel of a wine;

It comes of a delicious vine

That makes one live twice over.

Drink it, Ariadne mine,

And sweet as you are,

'Twill make you so sweet, so perfect and fair,

You'll be Venus at her best,

Venus Venusissimest.

Hah! Montalcino. I know it well,

The lovely little Muscadel;

A very lady-like little treat,

But something, for me, too gentle and sweet:

But a third,-no-a third, it cannot have place :

Wine like this

A bijou is

(I designed it) for the festals

Of the grave composed Vestals,-
Ladies, who in cloistered quires
Feed and keep alive chaste fires.
Wine like this

And for those

Of the lily and rose,

Who rejoice the banks of the Thames.
The Pisciancis of Cotone,

That gets Scarlatti so much money,

I leave for the weak heads of those.

Who know not a thing when its under their nose.

Pisciavello of Brasciano

Also hath too much piano:

Nerveless, colourless, and sickly,

Oversweet, it cloys too quickly.
Pray let the learned Pignatelli
Upon this head enlighten the silly.
If plebeian home must pet it,
Why, for God's sake, let it.

Ciccio d'Andrea himself one day,

'Mid his thunders of eloquence bursting away,

Sweet in his gravity,

Fierce in his suavity,

Dared in my own proper presence to talk
Of that stuff of Aversa, half acid and chalk,
Which, whether it's verjuice, or whether it's wine,
Far surpasses, I own, any science of mine.
Let him indulge in his strange tipples

With his proud friend, Fasano there, at Naples,
Who with a horrible impiety

Swore he could judge of wines as well as I.
So daring has that bold blasphemer grown,
He now pretends to ride my golden throne,
And taking up my triumphs, rolls along
The fair Sebetus with a fiery song;

Pampering, besides, those laurels that he wears
With vines that fatten in those genial airs;
And then he maddens, and against e'en me

A Thyrsus shakes on high, and threats his deity:

But I withhold at present, and endure him:
Phoebus and Pallas from mine ire secure him.

One day perhaps, on the Sebetus, I
Will elevate a throne of luxury;

And then he will be humbled, and will come,
Offering devoutly, to avert his doom,

Ischia's and Posilippo's noble Greek;

And then perhaps I shall not scorn to make

Peace with him, and will booze like Hans and

And 'midst our bellying bottles and vast flasks

There shall be present at our tasks

For lofty arbiter (and witness gay too)

My gentle Marquis there of Oliveto.

Meanwhile upon the Arno here,

Lo, of Pescia's Buriano,

Trebbiano, Colombano,