To-Morrow Is My Birthday

Well, then, another drink! Ben Jonson knows,     So do you, Michael Drayton, that to-morrow     I reach my fifty-second year. But hark ye,     To-morrow lacks two days of being a month -     Here is a secret - since I made my will.     Heigh ho! that's done too! I wonder why I did it?     That I should make a will! Yet it may be     That then and jump at this most crescent hour     Heaven inspired the deed.          As a mad younker     I knew an aged man in Warwickshire     Who used to say, "Ah, mercy me," for sadness     Of change, or passing time, or secret thoughts.     If it was spring he sighed it, if 'twas fall,     With drifting leaves, he looked upon the rain     And with doleful suspiration kept     This habit of his grief. And on a time     As he stood looking at the flying clouds,     I loitering near, expectant, heard him say it,     Inquired, "Why do you say 'Ah, mercy me,'     Now that it's April?" So he hobbled off     And left me empty there.             Now here am I!     Oh, it is strange to find myself this age,     And rustling like a peascod, though unshelled,     And, like this aged man of Warwickshire,     Slaved by a mood which must have breath - "Tra-la!     That's what I say instead of "Ah, mercy me."     For look you, Ben, I catch myself with "Tra-la"     The moment I break sleep to see the day.     At work, alone, vexed, laughing, mad or glad     I say, "Tra-la" unknowing. Oft at table     I say, "Tra-la." And 'tother day, poor Anne     Looked long at me and said, "You say, 'Tra-la'     Sometimes when you're asleep; why do you so?"     Then I bethought me of that aged man     Who used to say, "Ah, mercy me," but answered:     "Perhaps I am so happy when awake     The song crops out in slumber - who can say?"     And Anne arose, began to keel the pot,     But was she answered, Ben? Who know a woman?     To-morrow is my birthday. If I die,     Slip out of this with Bacchus for a guide,     What soul would interdict the poppied way?     Heroes may look the Monster down, a child     Can wilt a lion, who is cowed to see     Such bland unreckoning of his strength - but I,     Having so greatly lived, would sink away     Unknowing my departure. I have died     A thousand times, and with a valiant soul     Have drunk the cup, but why? In such a death     To-morrow shines and there's a place to lean.     But in this death that has no bottom to it,     No bank beyond, no place to step, the soul     Grows sick, and like a falling dream we shrink     From that inane which gulfs us, without place     For us to stand and see it.          Yet, dear Ben,     This thing must be; that's what we live to know     Out of long dreaming, saying that we know it.     As yeasty heroes in their braggart teens     Spout learnedly of war, who never saw     A cannon aimed. You drink too much to-day,     Or get a scratch while turning Lucy's stile,     And like a beast you sicken. Like a beast     They cart you off. What matter if your thought     Outsoared the Phoenix? Like a beast you rot.     Methinks that something wants our flesh, as we     Hunger for flesh of beasts. But still to-morrow,     To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow     Creeps in this petty pace - O, Michael Drayton,     Some end must be. But 'twixt the fear of ceasing     And weariness of going on we lie     Upon these thorns!          These several springs I find     No new birth in the Spring. And yet in London     I used to cry, "O, would I were in Stratford;     It's April and the larks are singing now.     The flags are green along the Avon river;     O, would I were a rambler in the fields.     This poor machine is racing to its wreck.     This grist of thought is endless, this old sorrow     Sprouts, winds and crawls in London's darkness. Come     Back to your landscape! Peradventure waits     Some woman there who will make new the earth,     And crown the spring with fire."          So back I come.     And the springs march before me, say, "Behold     Here are we, and what would you, can you use us?     What good is air if lungs are out, or springs     When the mind's flown so far away no spring,     Nor loveliness of earth can call it back?     I tell you what it is: in early youth     The life is in the loins; by thirty years     It travels through the stomach to the lungs,     And then we strut and crow. By forty years     The fruit is swelling while the leaves are fresh.     By fifty years you're ripe, begin to rot.     At fifty-two, or fifty-five or sixty     The life is in the seed - what's spring to you?     Puff! Puff! You are so winged and light you fly.     For every passing zephyr, are blown off,     And drifting, God knows where, cry out "tra-la,"     "Ah, mercy me," as it may happen you.     Puff! Puff! away you go!             Another drink?     Why, you may drown the earth with ale and I     Will drain it like a sea. The more I drink     The better I see that this is April time. ...     Ben! There is one Voice which says to everything:     "Dream what you will, I'll make you bear your seed.     And, having borne, the sickle comes among ye     And takes your stalk." The rich and sappy greens     Of spring or June show life within the loins,     And all the world is fair, for now the plant     Can drink the level cup of flame where heaven     Is poured full by the sun. But when the blossom     Flutters its colors, then it takes the cup     And waves the stalk aside. And having drunk     The stalk to penury, then slumber comes     With dreams of spring stored in the imprisoned germ,     An old life and a new life all in one,     A thing of memory and of prophecy,     Of reminiscence, longing, hope and fear.     What has been ours is taken, what was ours     Becomes entailed on our seed in the spring,     Fees in possession and enjoyment too. ...     The thing is sex, Ben. It is that which lives     And dies in us, makes April and unmakes,     And leaves a man like me at fifty-two,     Finished but living, on the pinnacle     Betwixt a death and birth, the earth consumed     And heaven rolled up to eyes whose troubled glances     Would shape again to something better - what?     Give me a woman, Ben, and I will pick     Out of this April, by this larger art     Of fifty-two, such songs as we have heard,     Both you and I, when weltering in the clouds     Of that eternity which comes in sleep,     Or in the viewless spinning of the soul     When most intense. The woman is somewhere,     And that's what tortures, when I think this field     So often gleaned could blossom once again     If I could find her.          Well, as to my plays:     I have not written out what I would write.     They have a thousand buds of finer flowering.     And over "Hamlet" hangs a teasing spirit     As fine to that as sense is fine to flesh.     Good friends, my soul beats up its prisoned wings     Against the ceiling of a vaster whorl     And would break through and enter. But, fair friends,     What strength in place of sex shall steady me?     What is the motive of this higher mount?     What process in the making of myself -     The very fire, as it were, of my growth -     Shall furnish forth these writings by the way,     As incident, expression of the nature     Relumed for adding branches, twigs and leaves?...     Suppose I'd make a tragedy of this,     Focus my fancied "Dante" to this theme,     And leave my halfwrit "Sappho," which at best     Is just another delving in the mine     That gave me "Cleopatra" and the Sonnets?     If you have genius, write my tragedy,     And call it "Shakespeare, Gentleman of Stratford,"     Who lost his soul amid a thousand souls,     And had to live without it, yet live with it     As wretched as the souls whose lives he lived.     Here is a play for you: Poor William Shakespeare,     This moment growing drunk, the famous author     Of certain sugared sonnets and some plays,     With this machine too much to him, which started     Some years ago, now cries him nay and runs     Even when the house shakes and complains, "I fall,     You shake me down, my timbers break apart.     Why, if an engine must go on like this     The building should be stronger."             Or to mix,     And by the mixing, unmix metaphors,     No mortal man has blood enough for brains     And stomach too, when the brain is never done     With thinking and creating.          For you see,     I pluck a flower, cut off a dragon's head -     Choose twixt these figures - lo, a dozen buds,     A dozen heads out-crop. For every fancy,     Play, sonnet, what you will, I write me out     With thinking "Now I'm done," a hundred others     Crowd up for voices, and, like twins unborn     Kick and turn o'er for entrance to the world.     And I, poor fecund creature, who would rest,     As 'twere from an importunate husband, fly     To money-lending, farming, mulberry trees,     Enclosing Welcombe fields, or idling hours     In common talk with people like the Combes.     All this to get a heartiness, a hold     On earth again, lest Heaven Hercules,     Finding me strayed to mid-air, kicking heels     Above the mountain tops, seize on my scruff     And bear me off or strangle.         Good, my friends,     The "Tempest" is as nothing to the voice     That calls me to performance - what I know not.     I've planned an epic of the Asian wash     Which slopped the star of Athens and put out,     Which should all history analyze, and present     A thousand notables in the guise of life,     And show the ancient world and worlds to come     To the last blade of thought and tiniest seed     Of growth to be. With visions such as these     My spirit turns in restless ecstacy,     And this enslaved brain is master sponge,     And sucks the blood of body, hands and feet.     While my poor spirit, like a butterfly     Gummed in its shell, beats its bedraggled wings,     And cannot rise.         I'm cold, both hands and feet.     These three days past I have been cold, this hour     I am warm in three days. God bless the ale.     God did do well to give us anodynes. ...     So now you know why I am much alone,     And cannot fellow with Augustine Phillips,     John Heminge, Richard Burbage, Henry Condell,     And do not have them here, dear ancient friends,     Who grieve, no doubt, and wonder for changed love.     Love is not love which alters when it finds     A change of heart, but mine has changed not, only     I cannot be my old self. I blaspheme:     I hunger for broiled fish, but fly the touch     Of hands of flesh.             I am most passionate,     And long am used perplexities of love     To bemoan and to bewail. And do you wonder,     Seeing what I am, what my fate has been?     Well, hark you; Anne is sixty now, and I,     A crater which erupts, look where she stands     In lava wrinkles, eight years older than I am,     As years go, but I am a youth afire     While she is lean and slippered. It's a Fury     Which takes me sometimes, makes my hands clutch out     For virgins in their teens. O sullen fancy!     I want them not, I want the love which springs     Like flame which blots the sun, where fuel of body     Is piled in reckless generosity. ...     You are most learned, Ben, Greek and Latin know,     And think me nature's child, scarce understand     How much of physic, law, and ancient annals     I have stored up by means of studious zeal.     But pass this by, and for the braggart breath     Ensuing now say, "Will was in his cups,     Potvaliant, boozed, corned, squiffy, obfuscated,     Crapulous, inter pocula, or so forth.     Good sir, or so, or friend, or gentleman,     According to the phrase or the addition     Of man and country, on my honor, Shakespeare     At Stratford, on the twenty-second of April,     Year sixteen-sixteen of our Lord was merry -     Videlicet, was drunk." Well, where was I? -     Oh yes, at braggart breath, and now to say it:     I believe and say it as I would lightly speak     Of the most common thing to sense, outside     Myself to touch or analyze, this mind     Which has been used by Something, as I use     A quill for writing, never in this world     In the most high and palmy days of Greece,     Or in this roaring age, has known its peer.     No soul as mine has lived, felt, suffered, dreamed,     Broke open spirit secrets, followed trails     Of passions curious, countless lives explored     As I have done. And what are Greek and Latin,     The lore of Aristotle, Plato to this?     Since I know them by what I am, the essence     From which their utterance came, myself a flower     Of every graft and being in myself     The recapitulation and the complex     Of all the great. Were not brains before books?     And even geometries in some brain     Before old Gutenberg? O fie, Ben Jonson,     If I am nature's child am I not all?     Howe'er it be, ascribe this to the ale,     And say that reason in me was a fume.     But if you honor me, as you have said,     As much as any, this side idolatry,     Think, Ben, of this: That I, whate'er I be     In your regard, have come to fifty-two,     Defeated in my love, who knew too well     That poets through the love of women turn     To satyrs or to gods, even as women     By the first touch of passion bloom or rot     As angels or as bawds.          Bethink you also     How I have felt, seen, known the mystic process     Working in man's soul from the woman soul     As part thereof in essence, spirit and flesh,     Even as a malady may be, while this thing     Is health and growth, and growing draws all life,     All goodness, wisdom for its nutriment.     Till it become a vision paradisic,     And a ladder of fire for climbing, from its topmost     Rung a place for stepping into heaven. ...     This I have know, but had not. Nor have I     Stood coolly off and seen the woman, used     Her blood upon my palette. No, but heaven     Commanded my strength's use to abort and slay     What grew within me, while I saw the blood     Of love untimely ripped, as 'twere a child     Killed i' the womb, a harpy or an angel     With my own blood stained.          As a virgin shamed     By the swelling life unlicensed needles it,     But empties not her womb of some last shred     Of flesh which fouls the alleys of her body,     And fills her wholesome nerves with poisoned sleep,     And weakness to the last of life, so I     For some shame not unlike, some need of life     To rid me of this life I had conceived     Did up and choke it too, and thence begot     A fever and a fixed debility     For killing that begot.         Now you see that I     Have not grown from a central dream, but grown     Despite a wound, and over the wound and used     My flesh to heal my flesh. My love's a fever     Which longed for that which nursed the malady,     And fed on that which still preserved the ill,     The uncertain, sickly appetite to please.     My reason, the physician to my love,     Angry that his prescriptions are not kept     Has left me. And as reason is past care     I am past cure, with ever more unrest     Made frantic-mad, my thoughts as madmen's are,     And my discourse at random from the truth,     Not knowing what she is, who swore her fair     And thought her bright, who is as black as hell     And dark as night.         But list, good gentlemen,     This love I speak of is not as a cloak     Which one may put away to wear a coat,     And doff that for a jacket, like the loves     We men are wont to have as loves or wives.     She is the very one, the soul of souls,     And when you put her on you put on light,     Or wear the robe of Nessus, poisonous fire,     Which if you tear away you tear your life,     And if you wear you fall to ashes. So     'Tis not her bed-vow broke, I have broke mine,     That ruins me; 'tis honest faith quite lost,     And broken hope that we could find each other,     And that mean more to me and less to her.     'Tis that she could take all of me and leave me     Without a sense of loss, without a tear,     And make me fool and perjured for the oath     That swore her fair and true. I feel myself     As like a virgin who her body gives     For love of one whose love she dreams is hers,     But wakes to find herself a toy of blood,     And dupe of prodigal breath, abandoned quite     For other conquests. For I gave myself,     And shrink for thought thereof, and for the loss     Of myself never to myself restored.     The urtication of this shame made plays     And sonnets, as you'll find behind all deeds     That mount to greatness, anger, hate, disgust,     But, better, love.             To hell with punks and wenches,     Drabs, mopsies, doxies, minxes, trulls and queans,     Rips, harridans and strumpets, pieces, jades.     And likewise to the eternal bonfire lechers,     All rakehells, satyrs, goats and placket fumblers,     Gibs, breakers-in-at-catch-doors, thunder tubes.     I think I have a fever - hell and furies!     Or else this ale grows hotter i' the mouth.     Ben, if I die before you, let me waste     Richly and freely in the good brown earth,     Untrumpeted and by no bust marked out.     What good, Ben Jonson, if the world could see     What face was mine, who wrote these plays and sonnets?     Life, you have hurt me. Since Death has a veil     I take the veil and hide, and like great Csar     Who drew his toga round him, I depart.     Good friends, let's to the fields - I have a fever.     After a little walk, and by your pardon,     I think I'll sleep. There is no sweeter thing,     Nor fate more blessed than to sleep. Here, world,     I pass you like an orange to a child:     I can no more with you. Do what you will.     What should my care be when I have no power     To save, guide, mould you? Naughty world you need me     As little as I need you: go your way!     Tyrants shall rise and slaughter fill the earth,     But I shall sleep. In wars and wars and wars     The ever-replenished youth of earth shall shriek     And clap their gushing wounds - but I shall sleep,     Nor earthy thunder wake me when the cannon     Shall shake the throne of Tartarus. Orators     Shall fulmine over London or America     Of rights eternal, parchments, sacred charters     And cut each others' throats when reason fails -     But I shall sleep. This globe may last and breed     The race of men till Time cries out "How long?"     But I shall sleep ten thousand thousand years.     I am a dream, Ben, out of a blessed sleep -     Let's walk and hear the lark.