
I write to wish you all that you wish for yourself—all that is best, on your birthday to-morrow! I meant to have had the lines overleaf complete to send you for the day, but somehow they do not fall into the right order. However you will take the will for the deed, I know; & perhaps in a day or two I may be able to render them in a better shape, when I write again to tell you of my doings since I saw you last.
A splendid time to-night at Metropolitan Opera House,—listening to Col. Bob Ingersoll. (Vide morning papers!) More of this anon. I am at Stedman's. He sends birthday greetings.
With great love, Ernest Rhys
To Walt Whitman—
On his 69th birthday.
Here health I bring you in one draught of song. Caught in my rhymester's cup from earth's delight Where English fields are green the whole year long,— The wine of night That the new-come spring distills most sweet and strong In the viewless air's alembic wrought too fine for sight. Now shall all pain be gone for this one day, As, drinking deep of this brimm'd wassail cup, You feel the years uncoil & their travailing pass away, Till, ere you drink it up, Again the sun's quick fires you feel pulse brainward through the blood, Again, as when in youth they pulsed, making the world seem good. For this the magic wine, That, tasted by the chosen lips, makes Life as long as thought,— Elixir this long sought, Filled of the sun & the wind & all green growing things, The salt of the sea & the sweet of the earth, And the potencies of death & birth,— That tasted once makes men as gods & the common world divine.
