Pacchiarotto - Epilogue

The poets pour us wine     Said the dearest poet I ever knew,     Dearest and greatest and best to me.     You clamor athirst for poetry     We pour. But when shall a vintage be     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 thats 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     His brain with a mixture of beams and dews     Turned syrupy drink, rough strength eschews:     What though in our veins your wine-stock stay?     The lack of the bloom does our palate wrong.     Give us wine sweet, not strong!     Yet wine is, some affirm,     Prime wine is found in the world somewhere,     Of portable strength with sweet to match.     You double your heart its dose, yet catch,     As the draught descends, a violet-swatch,     Softness, however it came there,     Through drops expressed by the fire and worm:     Strong sweet wine, some affirm.     Body and bouquet both?     Tis easy to ticket a bottle so;     But what was the case in the cask, my friends?     Cask? Nay, the vat, where the maker mends     His strong with his sweet (you suppose) and blends     His rough with his smooth, till none can know     How it comes you may tipple, nothing loth,     Body and bouquet both.     You being just, the world.     No poets, who turn, themselves, the winch     Of the press; no critics, Ill even say,     (Being flustered and easy of faith, to-day,)     Who for love of the work have learned the way     Till themselves produce home-made, at a pinch:     No! You are the world, and wine neer purled     Except to please the world!     For, oh the common heart!     And, ah the irremissible sin     Of poets who please themselves, not us!     Strong wine yet sweet wine pouring thus,     How please still, Pindar and schylus!     Drink, dipt 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 oer 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-and-curds.     Pay me with deeds, not words!     For, see your cellarage!     There are forty barrels with Shakespeares 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 dont you try tap, advance a stage     With the rest in cellarage?     For, see your cellarage!     There are four big butts of Miltons 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?     You hate your bard! A fig for your rage!     Free him from cellarage!     Tis said I brew stiff drink,     But the deuce a flavor of grape is there.     Hardly a May-go-down, tis just     A sort of a gruff Go-down-it-must,     No Merry-go-down, no gracious gust     Commingles the racy with Springtides rare!     What wonder, say you that we cough, and blink     At Autumns 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 fast-fixed     At the centurys 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!     Heres properest wine for old and young!     Dispute its perfection, you make us laugh!     Have faith, give thanks, but, quaff!     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 verse,     Old 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 instead!     No dwarfs-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 mines 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 Koh-i-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,     Never end sweet, which strong began,     Gods gift to gladden the heart of man;     But spirits at proof, I promise that!     No sparing of juice spoils what should be     Fit brewage, mine for me.     Mans thoughts and loves and hates!     Earth is my vineyard, these grew there:     From grape of the ground, I made or marred     My vintage; easy the task or hard,     Who set it, his praise be my reward!     Earths yield! Who yearn for the Dark Blue Seas,     Let them lay, pray, bray, the addle-pates!     Mine be Mans thoughts, loves, hates!     But some one says, Good Sir!     (Tis a worthy versed in what concerns     The making such labor turn out well,)     You dont suppose that the nosegay-smell     Needs always come from the grape? Each bell     At your foot, each bud that your culture spurns,     The very cowslip would act like myrrh     On the stiffest brew, good Sir!     Cowslips, abundant birth     Oer meadow and hillside, vineyard too,     Like a schoolboys scrawlings in and out     Distasteful lesson-book, all about     Greece and Rome, victory and rout,     Love-verses instead of such vain ado!     So, fancies frolic it oer the earth     Where thoughts have rightlier birth.     Nay, thoughtlings they themselves:     Loves, hates, in little and less and least!     Thoughts? What is a man beside a mount!     Loves? Absent, poor lovers the minutes count!     Hates? Fie, Popes letters to Martha Blount!     These furnish a wine for a childrens-feast:     Insipid to man, they suit the elves     Like thoughts, loves, hates themselves.     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, heres 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 Ive made you wine of the memories     Which leave as bare as a churchyard tomb     My meadow, late all bloom?     Nay, what ingratitude     Should I hesitate to amuse the wits     That have pulled so long at my flask, nor grudged     The headache that paid their pains, nor budged     From bunghole before they sighed and judged     Too rough for our taste, to-day, befits     The racy and right when the years conclude!     Out on ingratitude!     Grateful or ingrate, none,     No cowslip of all my fairy crew     Shall help to concoct what makes you wink,     And goes to your head till you think you think!     I like them alive: the printers ink     Would sensibly tell on the perfume too.     I may use up my nettles, ere Ive done;     But of cowslips, friends get none!     Dont 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 thats fur and a palate, paste!     A magnum for friends who are sound! the sick,     Ill posset and cosset them, nothing loth,     Henceforward with nettle-broth!