On Reading Omar Khayyam

[During an anti-saloon campaign, in central Illinois.]


    In the midst of the battle I turned,
    (For the thunders could flourish without me)
    And hid by a rose-hung wall,
    Forgetting the murder about me;
    And wrote, from my wound, on the stone,
    In mirth, half prayer, half play: -
    "Send me a picture book,
    Send me a song, to-day."

    I saw him there by the wall
    When I scarce had written the line,
    In the enemy's colors dressed
    And the serpent-standard of wine
    Writhing its withered length
    From his ghostly hands o'er the ground,
    And there by his shadowy breast
    The glorious poem I found.

    This was his world-old cry:
    Thus read the famous prayer:
    "Wine, wine, wine and flowers
    And cup-bearers always fair!"
    'Twas a book of the snares of earth
    Bordered in gold and blue,
    And I read each line to the wind
    And read to the roses too:
    And they nodded their womanly heads
    And told to the wall just why
    For wine of the earth men bleed,
    Kingdoms and empires die.
    I envied the grape stained sage:
    (The roses were praising him.)
    The ways of the world seemed good
    And the glory of heaven dim.
    I envied the endless kings
    Who found great pearls in the mire,
    Who bought with the nation's life
    The cup of delicious fire.

    But the wine of God came down,
    And I drank it out of the air.
    (Fair is the serpent-cup,
    But the cup of God more fair.)
    The wine of God came down
    That makes no drinker to weep.
    And I went back to battle again
    Leaving the singer asleep.