Heroic Poem In Praise Of Wine

To exalt, enthrone, establish and defend,     To welcome home mankind's mysterious friend     Wine, true begetter of all arts that be;     Wine, privilege of the completely free;     Wine the recorder; wine the sagely strong;     Wine, bright avenger of sly-dealing wrong,     Awake, Ausonian Muse, and sing the vineyard song!     Sing how the Charioteer from Asia came,     And on his front the little dancing flame     Which marked the God-head. Sing the Panther-team,     The gilded Thrysus twirling, and the gleam     Of cymbals through the darkness. Sing the drums.     He comes; the young renewer of Hellas comes!     The Seas await him. Those Aegean Seas     Roll from the dawning, ponderous, ill at ease,     In lifts of lead, whose cresting hardly breaks     To ghostly foam, when suddenly there awakes     A mountain glory inland. All the skies     Are luminous; and amid the sea bird cries     The mariner hears a morning breeze arise.     Then goes the Pageant forward. The sea-way     Silvers the feet of that august array     Trailing above the waters, through the airs;     And as they pass a wind before them bears     The quickening word, the influence magical.     The Islands have received it, marble-tall;     The long shores of the mainland. Something fills     The warm Euboean combes, the sacred hills     Of Aulis and of Argos. Still they move     Touching the City walls, the Temple grove,     Till, far upon the horizon-glint, a gleam     Of light, of trembling light, revealed they seem     Turned to a cloud, but to a cloud that shines,     And everywhere as they pass, the Vines! The Vines!     The Vines, the conquering Vines! And the Vine breaths     Her savour through the upland, empty heaths     Of treeless wastes; the Vines have come to where     The dark Pelasgian steep defends the lair     Of the wolf's hiding; to the empty fields     By Aufidus, the dry campaign that yields     No harvest for the husbandman, but now     Shall bear a nobler foison than the plough;     To where, festooned along the tall elm trees,     Tendrils are mirrored in Tyrrhenian seas;     To where the South awaits them; even to where     Stark, African informed of burning air,     Upturned to Heaven the broad Hipponian plain     Extends luxurious and invites the main.     Guelma's a mother: barren Thaspsa breeds;     And northward in the valleys, next the meads     That sleep by misty river banks, the Vines     Have struck to spread below the solemn pines.     The Vines are on the roof-trees. All the Shrines     And Homes of men are consecrate with Vines.     And now the task of that triumphant day     Has reached to victory. In the reddening ray     With all his train, from hard Iberian lands     Fulfilled, apparent, that Creator stands     Halted on Atlas. Far Beneath him, far,     The strength of Ocean darkening and the star     Beyond all shores. There is a silence made.     It glorifies: and the gigantic shade     Of Hercules adores him from the West.     Dead Lucre: burnt Ambition: Wine is best.     But what are these that from the outer murk     Of dense mephitic vapours creeping lurk     To breathe foul airs from that corrupted well     Which oozes slime along the floor of Hell?     These are the stricken palsied brood of sin     In whose vile veins, poor, poisonous and thin,     Decoctions of embittered hatreds crawl:     These are the Water-Drinkers, cursed all!     On what gin-sodden Hags, what flaccid sires     Bred these White Slugs from what exhaust desires?     In what close prison's horror were their wiles     Watched by what tyrant power with evil smiles;     Or in what caverns, blocked from grace and air     Received they, then, the mandates of despair?     What! Must our race, our tragic race, that roam     All exiled from our first, and final, home:     That in one moment of temptation lost     Our heritage, and now wander, hunger-tost     Beyond the Gates (still speaking with our eyes     For ever of remembered Paradise),     Must we with every gift accepted, still,     With every joy, receive attendant ill?     Must some lewd evil follow all our good     And muttering dog our brief beatitude?     A primal doom, inexorable, wise,     Permitted, ordered, even these to rise.     Even in the shadow of so bright a Lord     Must swarm and propagate the filthy horde     Debased, accursed I say, abhorrent and abhorred.     Accursed and curse-bestowing. For whosoe'er     Shall suffer their contagion, everywhere     Falls from the estate of man and finds his end     To the mere beverage of the beast condemned.     For such as these in vain the Rhine has rolled     Imperial centuries by hills of gold;     For such as these the flashing Rhone shall rage     In vain its lightning through the Hermitage     Or level-browed divine Touraine receive     The tribute of her vintages at eve.     For such as these Burgundian heats in vain     Swell the rich slope or load the empurpled plain.     Bootless for such as these the mighty task     Of bottling God the Father in a flask     And leading all Creation down distilled     To one small ardent sphere immensely filled.     With memories empty, with experience null,     With vapid eye-balls meaningless and dull     They pass unblest through the unfruitful light;     And when we open the bronze doors of Night,     When we in high carousal, we reclined,     Spur up to Heaven the still ascending mind,     Pass with the all inspiring, to and fro,     The torch of genius and the Muse's glow,     They, lifeless, stare at vacancy alone     Or plan mean traffic, or repeat their moan.     We, when repose demands us, welcomed are     In young white arms, like our great Exemplar     Who, wearied with creation, takes his rest     And sinks to sleep on Ariadne's breast.     They through the darkness into darkness press     Despised, abandoned and companionless.     And when the course of either's sleep has run     We leap to life like heralds of the sun;     We from the couch in roseate mornings gay     Salute as equals the exultant day     While they, the unworthy, unrewarded, they     The dank despisers of the Vine, arise     To watch grey dawns and mourn indifferent skies.     Forget them! Form the Dionysian ring     And pulse the ground, and Io, Io, sing.     Father Lenaean, to whom our strength belongs,     Our loves, our wars, our laughter and our songs,     Remember our inheritance, who praise     Your glory in these last unhappy days     When beauty sickens and a muddied robe     Of baseness fouls the universal globe.     Though all the Gods indignant and their train     Abandon ruined man, do thou remain!     By thee the vesture of our life was made,     The Embattled Gate, the lordly Colonnade,     The woven fabric's gracious hues, the sound     Of trumpets, and the quivering fountain-round,     And, indestructible, the Arch, and, high,     The Shaft of Stone that stands against the sky,     And, last, the guardian-genius of them, Rhyme,     Come from beyond the world to conquer time:     All these are thine, Lenaean.     By thee do seers the inward light discern;     By thee the statue lives, the Gods return;     By thee the thunder and the falling foam     Of loud Acquoria's torrent call to Rome;     Alba rejoices in a thousand springs,     Gensano laughs, and Orvieto sings...     But, Ah! With Orvieto, with that name     Of dark, Eturian, subterranean flame     The years dissolve. I am standing in that hour     Of majesty Septembral, and the power     Which swells the clusters when the nights are still     With autumn stars on Orvieto hill.     Had these been mine, Ausonian Muse, to know     The large contented oxen heaving slow;     To count my sheaves at harvest; so to spend     Perfected days in peace until the end;     With every evening's dust of gold to hear     The bells upon the pasture height, the clear     Full horn of herdsmen gathering in the kine     To ancient byres in hamlets Appenine,     And crown abundant age with generous ease:     Had these, Ausonian Muse, had these, had these.....     But since I would not, since I could not stay,     Let me remember even in this my day     How, when the ephemeral vision's lure is past     All, all, must face their Passion at the last     Was there not one that did to Heaven complain     How, driving through the midnight and the rain,     He struck, the Atlantic seethe and surge before,     Wrecked in the North along a lonely shore     To make the lights of home and hear his name no     more.     Was there not one that from a desperate field     Rode with no guerdon but a rifted shield;     A name disherited; a broken sword;     Wounds unrenowned; battle beneath no Lord;     Strong blows, but on the void, and toil without     reward.     When from the waste of such long labour done     I too must leave the grape-ennobling sun     And like the vineyard worker take my way     Down the long shadows of declining day,     Bend on the sombre plain my clouded sight     And leave the mountain to the advancing night,     Come to the term of all that was mine own     With nothingness before me, and alone;     Then to what hope of answer shall I turn?     Comrade-Commander whom I dared not earn,     What said You then to trembling friends and few?     "A moment, and I drink it with you new:     But in my Father's Kingdom." So, my Friend,     Let not Your cup desert me in the end.     But when the hour of mine adventure's near     Just and benignant, let my youth appear     Bearing a Chalice, open, golden, wide,     With benediction graven on its side.     So touch my dying lip: so bridge that deep:     So pledge my waking from the gift of sleep,     And, sacramental, raise me the Divine:     Strong brother in God and last companion, Wine.