The Bacchus, On Shrove-Monday, 2007

Now again on Shrove Monday,
We laugh and cheer the day away,
While writing verses for the doors,
And call old Bacchus King of Boors;
And so we keep Tradition.
Hey-ho to Bacchus!

From all the wine he drinks all day,
There's not one thing that he can say;
And so he sleeps and snores away;
With his hair some tricks we play,
And call him an old j--- a--.
Hey-ho to Bacchus!

Hey-ho to Bacchus! aye, ho-hey.
For this is what we do today!

XIX. FEB. MMVII.

Author notes

In Hone's Year Book of Daily Recreation and Information, 1838, there is an entry for the 3rd Feb. on old Shrovetide and its customs. One custom is this:--
At Eton school it was the custom on Shrove Monday, for the scholars to write verses either in praise or dispraise of Father Bacchus: poets being considered as immediately under his protection. He was therefore sung on this occasion in all kinds of metres, and the verses of the boys of the seventh and sixth, and of some of the fifth forms, were affixed to the inner doors of the College. Verses are still written and put up on this day, but the young poets are no longer confined to the god of wine. Still, however, the custom retains the name of "the Bacchus."'