Bacchanal

Loud clamors fill the Ganges with affright:
The tigers from their yokes have torn away,
And, fiercely mewing, bound; while in dismay
Bacchantes crush the vintage in their flight.

The fruited vines, mangled by claw and bite,
Spatter the striped ones with their reddening spray
Near where the leopards, leaping to the fray,
Roll in the purple mire their bellies white.

The beasts all dazed, whose bodies writhe and tear
As roar on roar with growl long-drawn is rolled,
Snuff blood still richer through their tawny gold;

But the mad God, shaking his thyrsus there,
Cheers the strange sport, and adds unto the bale
The howling female with the roaring male.