CHAPTER XI. THE GREAT ADVENTURE

For oh, the draught is good; I drink to Life, I drink to Death, And smack my lips with song, For when I die, another ‘I’ shall pass the cup along. “The man you drove from Eden’s grove Was I, my Lord, was I, And I shall be there when the earth and the air Are rent from sea to sky; For it is my world, my gorgeous world, The world of my dearest woes, From the first faint cry of the newborn To the rack of the woman’s throes. “Packed with the pulse of an unborn race, Torn with a world’s desire, The surging flood of my wild young blood Would quench the judgment fire. I am Man, Man, Man, from the tingling flesh To the dust of my earthly goal, From the nestling gloom of the pregnant womb To the sheen of my naked soul.