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(From The Golden Legend)
FRIAR CLAUS in the Convent cellar.
I HAVE heard it said that at Easter-tide, | |
| When buds are swelling on every side, | |
| And the sap begins to move in the vine, | |
| Then in all the cellars, far and wide, | |
| The oldest, as well as the newest, wine | 5 |
| Begins to stir itself, and ferment, | |
| With a kind of revolt and discontent | |
| At being so long in darkness pent, | |
| And fain would burst from its sombre tun | |
| To bask on the hillside in the sun; | 10 |
| As in the bosom of us poor friars, | |
| The tumult of half-subdued desires | |
| For the world that we have left behind | |
| Disturbs at times all peace of mind! | |
| And now that we have lived through Lent, | 15 |
| My duty it is, as often before, | |
| To open awhile the prison-door, | |
| And give these restless spirits vent. | |
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| Now here is a cask that stands alone, | |
| And has stood a hundred years or more, | 20 |
| Its beard of cobwebs, long and hoar, | |
| Trailing and sweeping along the floor, | |
| Like Barbarossa, who sits in his cave, | |
| Taciturn, sombre, sedate, and grave, | |
| Till his beard has grown through the table of stone! | 25 |
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| It is of the quick and not of the dead! | |
| In its veins the blood is hot and red, | |
| And a heart still beats in those ribs of oak | |
| That time may have tamed, but has not broke! | |
| It comes from Bacharach on the Rhine, | 30 |
| Is one of the three best kinds of wine, | |
| And costs some hundred florins the ohm; | |
| But that I do not consider dear, | |
| When I remember that every year | |
| Four butts are sent to the Pope of Rome. | 35 |
| And whenever a goblet thereof I drain, | |
| The old rhyme keeps running in my brain: | |
| At Bacharach on the Rhine, | |
| At Hochheim on the Main, | |
| And at Würzburg on the Stein, | 40 |
| Grow the three best kinds of wine! | |
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| They are all good wines, and better far | |
| Than those of the Neckar or those of the Ahr. | |
| In particular, Würzburg well may boast | |
| Of its blessed wine of the Holy Ghost, | 45 |
| Which of all wines I like the most. | |
| This I shall draw for the Abbot’s drinking, | |
| Who seems to be much of my way of thinking. | |
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Fills a flagon. Ah! how the streamlet laughs and sings! | |
| What a delicious fragrance springs | 50 |
| From the deep flagon, while it fills, | |
| As of hyacinths and daffodils! | |
| Between this cask and the Abbot’s lips | |
| Many have been the sips and slips; | |
| Many have been the draughts of wine, | 55 |
| On their way to his, that have stopped at mine; | |
| And many a time my soul has hankered | |
| For a deep draught out of his silver tankard, | |
| When it should have been busy with other affairs, | |
| Less with its longings and more with its prayers. | 60 |
| But now there is no such awkward condition, | |
| No danger of death and eternal perdition; | |
| So here ’s to the Abbot and Brothers all, | |
| Who dwell in this convent of Peter and Paul! | |
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He drinks. O cordial delicious! O soother of pain! | 65 |
| It flashes like sunshine into my brain! | |
| A benison rest on the Bishop who sends | |
| Such a fudder of wine as this to his friends! | |
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| And now a flagon for such as may ask | |
| A draught from the noble Bacharach cask, | 70 |
| And I will be gone, though I know full well | |
| The cellar ’s a cheerfuller place than the cell. | |
| Behold where he stands, all sound and good, | |
| Brown and old in his oaken hood; | |
| Silent he seems externally | 75 |
| As any Carthusian monk may be; | |
| But within, what a spirit of deep unrest! | |
| What a seething and simmering in his breast! | |
| As if the heaving of his great heart | |
| Would burst his belt of oak apart! | 80 |
| Let me unloose this button of wood, | |
| And quiet a little his turbulent mood. | |
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Sets it running. See! how its currents gleam and shine, | |
| As if they had caught the purple hues | |
| Of autumn sunsets on the Rhine, | 85 |
| Descending and mingling with the dews; | |
| Or as if the grapes were stained with the blood | |
| Of the innocent boy, who, some years back, | |
| Was taken and crucified by the Jews, | |
| In that ancient town of Bacharach; | 90 |
| Perdition upon those infidel Jews, | |
| In that ancient town of Bacharach! | |
| The beautiful town, that gives us wine | |
| With the fragrant odor of Muscadine! | |
| I should deem it wrong to let this pass | 95 |
| Without first touching my lips to the glass, | |
| For here in the midst of the current I stand, | |
| Like the stone Pfalz in the midst of the river, | |
| Taking toll upon either hand, | |
| And much more grateful to the giver. | 100 |
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He drinks. Here, now, is a very inferior kind, | |
| Such as in any town you may find, | |
| Such as one might imagine would suit | |
| The rascal who drank wine out of a boot. | |
| And, after all, it was not a crime, | 105 |
| For he won thereby Dorf Hüffelsheim. | |
| A jolly old toper! who at a pull | |
| Could drink a postilion’s jack-boot full, | |
| And ask with a laugh, when that was done, | |
| If the fellow had left the other one! | 110 |
| This wine is as good as we can afford | |
| To the friars, who sit at the lower board, | |
| And cannot distinguish bad from good, | |
| And are far better off than if they could, | |
| Being rather the rude disciples of beer | 115 |
| Than of anything more refined and dear! | |
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