NATURAL MAGIC ALL I can say is-I saw it! The room was as bare as your hand. swear, From the head to the foot of her-well, quite as bare! "No Nautch shall cheat me," said I, "taking my stand At this bolt which I draw!" And this bolt-I withdraw it, And there laughs the lady, not bare, but embowered With-who knows what verdure, o'erfruited, o'erflowered? Impossible! Only-I saw it! All I can sing is-I feel it ! This life was as blank as that room; I let you pass in here. Precaution, indeed? Walls, ceiling and floor,-not a chance for a weed! Wide opens the entrance: where 's cold now, where 's gloom? No May to sow seed here, no June to You cry-" strong grape, squeezed gold from screw, Yet sweet juice, flavored flowery-fine? That were indeed the wine!" One pours your cup-stark strength, Meat for a man; and you eye the pulp Strained, turbid still, from the viscous blood Of the snaky bough: and you grumble "Good! For it swells resolve, breeds hardihood; Dispatch it, then, in a single gulp!" So, down, with a wry face, goes at length The liquor stuff for strength. One pours your cup-sheer sweet, The fragrant fumes of a year condensed: Suspicion of all that 's ripe or rathe, From the bud on branch to the grass in swathe, "We suck mere milk of the seasons," saith A curl of each nostril--" dew, dispensed Nowise for nerving man to feat: Boys sip such honeyed sweet! And thus who wants wine strong, Waves each sweet smell of the year away; Who likes to swoon as the sweets suffuse Drink-dipped into by the bearded chin Alike and the bloomy lip-no part Denied the common heart! "And might we get such grace, And did you moderns but stock our vault With the true half-brandy half-attar-gul, How would seniors indulge at a hearty pull While juniors tossed off their thimbleful! Our Shakespeare and Milton escaped your fault, So, they reign supreme o'er the weaker race That wants the ancient grace!" If I paid myself with words (As the French say well) I were dupe indeed! I were found in belief that you quaffed and bowsed At your Shakespeare the whole day long, caroused In your Milton pottle-deep nor drowsed A moment of night-toped on, took heed Of nothing like modern cream-andcurds. Pay me with deeds, not words! For see your cellarage! There are forty barrels with Shakespeare's brand. Some five or six are abroach: the rest Stand spigoted, fauceted. Try and test What yourselves call best of the very best! How comes it that still untouched they stand? Why don't you try tap, advance a stage With the rest in the cellarage? For-see your cellarage! There are four big butts of Milton's brew. How comes it you make old drips and drops Do duty, and there devotion stops? Leave such an abyss of malt and hops Embellied in butts which bungs still glue? [rage! You hate your bard! A fig for your Free him from cellarage! "T is said I brew stiff drink, But the deuce a flavor of grape is there. Hardly a May-go-down, 't is just "What wonder," say you, "that we cough, and blink At Autumn's heady drink?" Is it a fancy, friends? Mighty and mellow are never mixed, Though mighty and mellow be born at once. Sweet for the future,-strong for the nonce! Stuff you should stow away, ensconce In the deep and dark, to be found fastfixed At the century's close: such time strength spends A-sweetening for my friends! And then-why, what you quaff With a smack of lip and a cluck of tongue, Is leakage and leavings-just what haps From the tun some learned taster taps With a promise "Prepare your watery chaps! Here's properest wine for old and young! Dispute its perfection? You make us laugh! Have faith, give thanks, butquaff!" Leakage, I say, or-worse Leavings suffice, pot-valiant souls. Somebody, brimful, long ago, Frothed flagon he drained to the dregs; and, lo, Down whisker and beard what an overflow! Lick spilth that has trickled from classic jowls, Sup the single scene, sip the only verseOld wine, not new and worse! I grant you: worse by much! Renounce that new where you never gained One glow at heart, one gleam at head, And stick to the warrant of age in stead! No dwarf's-lap! Fatten, by giants fed! You fatten, with oceans of drink undrained? You feed-who would choke did a cobweb smutch The Age you love so much? A mine 's beneath a moor: Acres of moor roof fathoms of mine Which diamonds dot where you please to dig; Yet who plies spade for the bright and big? Your product is--truffles, you hunt with a pig! Since bright-and-big, when a man would dine, Suits badly and therefore the Kohi-noor May sleep in mine 'neath moor! Wine, pulse in might from me! It may never emerge in must from vat, Never fill cask nor furnish can, But spirit 's at proof, I promise that! No sparing of juice spoils what should be And, friends, beyond dispute I too have the cowslips dewy and dear. Punctual as Springtide forth peep they : I leave them to make my meadow gay. But I ought to pluck and impound them, eh? Not let them alone, but deftly shear And shred and reduce to-what may suit Children, beyond dispute? And, here 's May-month, all bloom, All bounty: what if I sacrifice? If I out with shears and shear, nor stop Shearing till prostrate, lo, the crop? And will you prefer it to ginger-pop When I've made you wine of the memories Which leave as bare as a churchyard tomb My meadow, late all bloom? I like them alive the printer's ink Would sensibly tell on the perfume too. I may use up my nettles, ere I've done; But of cowslips-friends get none ! Don't nettles make a broth Wholesome for blood grown lazy and thick? Maws out of sorts make mouths out of taste. My Thirty-four Port-no need to waste On a tongue that 's fur and a palatepaste! A magnum for friends who are sound! the sick I'll posset and cosset them, nothing loth, Henceforward with nettle-broth! |