Ode 608

SEEST thou this little berry, this green pill?
'T is made of dreams; yet, so sustaining it,
Thirty fat birds all cooking on a spit
Would not thy belly half so subtly fill.

It is this berry that the Sufis eat
When they would fall into an ecstasy,
And tell their precious lies to thee and me;
A little hasheesh is the whole big cheat.

Thirty birds, said I? yea! in one small grain
A hundred times that number cook for thee;
Eat thou—'t will harm thee not—and thine shall be
Houris unnumbered ere thou wakest again.