"But as to drink, I swear I do not drink-- How if I drank could I produce the works I have produced? A giant's task, when drink Sustains me not, is not my nutriment As hock and soda water were for Byron, But sets me flaming wild, a little drink Will set me flaming, poisons me, I know. And yet I must partake of drink sometimes For life is flying, is recession, we Are shrinking back into ourselves, at last The arms we shrank from close about us--death's. And there are souls born lonely; I am one. And gifted with the glance of looking through The shams, the opera bouffe, and I am one. Often after a stretch of toil when I Come out of the trance of writing spent and wracked, I used to walk to High Bridge, sit and muse, (For this brain never stops and that's my curse,) Upon this monstrous world and why it is; And why the souls who love the beautiful, And love it only and are doomed to speak Its wonder and its terror are alone, Misunderstood and hunted, fouled by falsehood, Have crumbs upon the steps, are licked by dogs, Or else are starved. And why it is that I Must go about, a beggar, with my songs Exchanging them for bread. And then it is When this poor brain like the creative stuff, The central purpose, whirls, as I have written, And will not stop--drink! for oblivion, For rest, to get away from self, back faster From the pursuing Nothing. Yet, my love, Think out what causes judgments, standards, tastes; And why it was that Southey, Wordsworth won The organic national praise and Shelley lost, And Byron lost it--Southey the sycophant, Wordsworth the dull adherent, renegade-- These two against these spirits who came here To sing of Liberty--and look at me, A wanderer and a poor, rejected man, While usurers, slave owners rule the land, And the cities reek with hypocrites, who step On Freedom and on Beauty, are rewarded, Praised, fed and honored for it. Then behold Your friend who loves you, hunted, buffeted, For a little drink, when in spite of drink and even Because of drink, who knows? I have achieved, Written these books. And what is life beside, Whether with drink or whether with abstinence, Except to sing your song and die, what course Can stave the event, the wage of life, not sin? Oh if you knew what love I have for you! All of my powers are not enough to tell How all my heart is yours, how I have found Eternal things through you, cannot surrender Your love, your heart, without I lose some life, Some vital part of me--and yet farewell, For you have willed it so, and I submit. I rise up in my loneliness, seek the sun To shine about me in my loneliness, Submit and say farewell."