Pacchiarotto/Epilogue
For works with similar titles, see Epilogue.
EPILOGUE.
μεστοὶ . . .οἱ δ᾽ ἀμφορῆς οἴνου μέλανος ἀνθοσμίου.
1."The poets pour us wine—"Said the dearest poet I ever knew,Dearest and greatest and best to me.You clamour athirst for poetry—We pour. "But when shall a vintage be"—You cry—"strong grape, squeezed gold from screw,Yet sweet juice, flavoured flowery-fine?That were indeed the wine!"
2.One pours your cup—stark strength,Meat for a man; and you eye the pulpStrained, turbid still, from the viscous bloodOf the snaky bough: and you grumble "Good!For it swells resolve, breeds hardihood;Despatch it, then, in a single gulp!"So, down, with a wry face, goes at lengthThe liquor: stuff for strength.
3.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," saithA curl of each nostril—"dew, dispensedNowise for nerving man to feat:Boys sip such honeyed sweet!"
4.And thus who wants wine strong,Waves each sweet smell of the year away;Who likes to swoon as the sweets suffuseHis brain with a mixture of beams and dewsTurned 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!"
5.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-smatch,Through drops expressed by the fire and worm:Strong sweet wine—some affirm.
6.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 blendsHis rough with his smooth, till none can knowHow it comes you may tipple, nothing loth,Body and bouquet both.
7."You" being just—the world.No poets—who turn, themselves, the winchOf the press; no critics—I'll even say,(I am flustered and easy of faith, to-day)Who for love of the work have learned the wayTill themselves produce home-made, at a pinch:No! You are the world, and wine ne'er purledExcept to please the world!
8."For, oh the common heart!And, ah the irremissible sinOf poets who please themselves, not us!Strong wine yet sweet wine pouring thus,How please still—Pindar and Æschylus!—Drink—dipt into by the bearded chinAlike and the bloomy lip—no partDenied the common heart!
9."And might we get such grace,And did you moderns but stock our vaultWith 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 raceThat wants the ancient grace!"
10.If I paid myself with words(As the French say well) I were dupe indeed!I were found in belief that you quaffed and bowsedAt your Shakespeare the whole day long, carousedIn your Milton pottle-deep nor drowsedA moment of night—toped on, took heedOf nothing like modern cream-and-curds.Pay me with deeds, not words!
11.For—see your cellarage!There are forty barrels with Shakespeare's brand.Some five or six are abroach: the restStand spigoted, fauceted. Try and testWhat yourselves call best of the very best!Why is it that untouched they stand?Why don't you try tap, advance a stageWith the rest in cellarage?
12.For—see your cellarage!There are four big butts of Milton's brew.How comes it you make old drips and dropsDo duty, and there devotion stops? Leave such an abyss of malt and hopsEmbellied in butts which bungs still glue?You hate your bard! A fig for your rage!Free him from cellarage!
13.'Tis said I brew stiff drink,But the deuce a flavor of grape is there.Hardly a May-go-down, 'tis justA sort of a gruff Go-down-it-must—No Merry-go-down, no gracious gustCommingles the racy May, the rare!"What wonder," say you "we cough, and blinkOctober's heady drink?"
14.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, ensconceIn the deep and dark, to be found fast-fixedAt the century's close: such time strength spendsA-sweetening for my friends!
15.And then—why, what you quaffWith a smack of lip and a cluck of tongue,Is leakage and leavings—just what hapsFrom 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, but—quaff!"
16.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!
17.I grant you: worse by much!Renounce that new where you never gainedOne glow at heart, one gleam at head,And stick to the warrant of age instead!No dwarf's-lap! Fatten, by giants fed!You fatten, with oceans of drink undrained?You feed—who would choke did a cobweb smutchThe Age you love so much?
18.A mine's beneath a moor:Acres of moor roof fathoms of mineWhich 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-noorMay sleep in mine 'neath moor!
19.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—God's gift to gladden the heart of man;But spirit's at proof, I promise that!No sparing of juice spoils what should beFit brewage—mine for me.
20.Man's thoughts and loves and hates!Earth is my vineyard, these grew there:From grape of the ground, I made or marredMy vintage; easy the task or hard,Who set it—his praise be my reward!Earth's yield! Who yearn for the Dark Blue Sea'sLet them "lay, pray, bray"—the addle-patesMine be Man's thoughts, loves, hates!
21.But some one says, "Good Sir!"('Tis a worthy versed in what concernsThe making such labour turn out well)"You don't suppose that the nosegay-smell Needs always come from the grape? Each bellAt your foot, each bud that your Honor spurns,The very cowslip would act like myrrhOn the stiffest brew—good Sir!
22."Cowslips, abundant birthO'er meadow and hillside, vineyard too,—Like a schoolboy's scrawlings in and outDistasteful lesson-book—all aboutGreece and Rome, victory and rout—Love-verses instead of such vain ado!So, fancies frolic it o'er the earthWhere thoughts have rightlier birth.
23."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—Pope's letters to Martha Blount!'These furnish a wine for a children's-feast:Insipid to man, they suit the elvesLike thoughts, loves, hates themselves."
24.And, friends, beyond disputeI 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 shearAnd shred and reduce to—what may suitChildren, beyond dispute?
25.And, here's May-month, all bloom,All bounty: what if I sacrifice?If I out with shears and shear, nor stopShearing till prostrate, lo, the crop?And will you prefer it to ginger-popWhen I've made you wine of the memoriesWhich leave as bare as a churchyard tombMy meadow, late all bloom?
26.Nay, what ingratitudeShould I hesitate to amuse the witsThat have pulled so long at my flask, nor grudgedThe headache that paid their pains, nor budgedFrom bunghole before they sighed and judged"Too rough for our taste, to-day, befitsThe racy and right when the years conclude!"Out on ingratitude!
27.Grateful or ingrate—none,No cowslip of all my fairy crewShall help to concoct what makes you wink,And goes to your head till you think you think I like them alive: the printer's inkWould sensibly tell on the perfume too.I may use up my nettles, ere I've done;But of cowslips—friends get none!
28.Don't nettles make a brothWholesome for blood grown lazy and thick?Maws out of sorts make mouths out of taste.My Thirty-four Port—no need to wasteOn a tongue that's fur and a palate—paste!A magnum for friends who are sound! the sick—I'll posset and cosset them, nothing loth,Henceforward with nettle-broth!