COme Bacchus, God of Poetry, by
right; | Lend me thine influence, whilst now I write. | Thy Sackbut can into my breast inspire | More active heat, than can Apollo's Lire. | He's an
Vsurper;
and his pow'r a crack, | If we his Helicon compare with Sack. | Lock up that Nectar but a year or two, | And see what all his Hippocrene can do. | That Trough of Pegasus! a
pretious
grace | To vaunt thus of an
Hackney's wat'ring-place!Thomas Shipman, "The Canary Islands" (1666), stanza 1 (of 7). In Carolina, or, Loyal poems (London: Printed for Samuel Heyrick, at Grayes-Inn-Gate in Holborn, and William Crook, at the Green Dragon without Temple-Bar, 1683), 115. Viewed in Early English Books Online. From the OED:
- Crack: an empty boast.
- Helicon: "a mountain in Bœotia, sacred to the Muses, in which rose the fountains of Aganippe and Hippocrene; by 16th and 17th century writers often confused with these. Hence used allusively in reference to poetic inspiration." Also: "An ancient acoustical instrument consisting of strings stretched over a resonance-box and capable of being adjusted to different lengths" (cf. "lire"). (And, ironically, from about 1875, "A large brass wind-instrument of a spiral form", roughly a sousaphone.)
- Sack: "a class of white wines formerly imported from Spain and the Canaries."
- Hippocrene: "Poetic or literary inspiration; [or] a source of this. The Hippocrene spring . . . was sacred to the Muses, and its waters were said to imbue the drinker with poetic inspiration."
- Pegasus: "Greek Mythology. The winged horse . .. which is said to have created the fountain Hippocrene, sacred to the Muses, with a stroke of its hoof; (hence) often represented as the favourite steed of the Muses, bearing poets on their flights of poetic inspiration."
Forget Apollo's lyre. Imbibe sackbutian fire.
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