University of Virginia Library

IV
BAPTIST TIDE

Basil Lionel Brian Menzies
Basil
Outcast and vagrant, hail!
Unhappy, wandering star,
You sojourn here, unchid;
We love you—as you are,
Rejected, scorned, forbid,
Targe of the world's abuse.

Lionel
What nectar, dark or pale,
To drink your happier cheer in?
What brew, what auburn ale,
What blood, what golden juice
Of Albany or Erin?

Menzies
The grape, the grape: no malt
To deaden soul and sense.
Let some illustrious wine
My heart and brain exalt,
And crowded opulence
Of fantasy be mine.

Basil
Your brain shall teem with sights
Desirable as youth;
And sense and soul divide
The ravished world between them.

Brian
Bethink you, sirs: in sooth
We should be Nazarites,
For this is Baptist Tide.

Lionel
Let formalists demean them
As ancient modes provide:
We take no oath, no vow;
Nor shall our hearts abide
In bondage of the past.

Basil
The adolescent world
Is but beginning now;
And men are men at last.

Brian
Yet the sweet heaven unfurled
About us like a rose,
Nor ending, nor beginning,
Nor age, nor ailment knows.

Lionel
Though that were certain, folk
Who cannot make an end
Of simple-hearted sinning,
Who have their lives to spend,
And must endure the yoke
Of human joys and woes,
Seek still a new beginning,
Desire a sweeter song,
Expect the compassed close
Of misery and wrong.

Basil
A cup of wine can change
Despair to deep delight.

Brian
An overture that jars
Upon our mood! We range
The purlieus of the night
On thoughts that seek the stars;
You drag us down to earth,
And urge a vinous mirth!

Basil
Nay, now; fill, drink, and mark:—
A Burgundy mature;
Romanée Conti, dark
As carmine jewels, pure
As Côte d'Or's golden noons,
And spiced with dewy scent
Of rich autumnal moons.

Brian
A wine whose virtue's spent
Before the lees appear!

Basil
By Dionysius, no!
A mystery slumbers here,
A rite, a sacrament,
Whose nature I can show.
We drink material power;
The inmost soul of wine
Is adamant, the flower
Of carbon: light and heat
Long-hoarded in the mine;
Mettle of bread and meat;
The dawn whose crimson flood
Intoxicates the east;
The tissue and the heart
Of organism; the blood,
The seed of man and beast
Become by Nature's art
Sterile as candent flame,
And yet the stuff, the breath
Of noble strife, of fame,
Of myths that folk invent
To give the past a name;
Ethereal life in death,
Potable ravishment.

Lionel
The naked facts; the truth;
The power, the poetry!

Basil
Now will our outcast see
Some vision of his youth;
Of summer's flower and leaf,
Of emprise meetly done;
A happy gleaner's sheaf,
Or love, or battle won;
Some joy beyond belief:
For he has drunk the sun,
Drunk up the night and day,
Drunk down the dregs of grief,
And drunk the world away.

Lionel
He sees us not, nor hears;
A glory fills his eyes,
Like one through crystal tears
Beholding Paradise.

Menzies
Not rubies set in gold
Of matchless flame and worth,
But dawn and sunset scrolled
About the emerald earth!
Oh, moon of my desire,
Bend from your heaven above,
A lily sweet, on fire
With newly budded love!
Bend from your heaven; be mine
Once more before I die,
And let life's hallowed wine
Empurple earth and sky
In hyacinthine hours,
And dusky midnights hung
With stars and passion-flowers
And ecstasies unsung!

Lionel
Entranced into the street
He wanders like a shade!

Brian
He treads on wingèd feet:
I think his grave is made!

Basil
His soul is bathed in light,
His heart for love athirst:
Were he to die to-night
I scarce should call him curst.