Saturday Night. Bourbon and Soda

One flexed his knees to dance embarrassed Death;

One had me blindfold feel his hairy sob;

One with a cloud of fire "Beware, Macbeth!"

Intoned, then dunked his flambeau in the mad mob

Of waters. Cushions guard our honor. Rafters swell

With Richard's brittle glory; while, the lintel pent

With stealthy lust, we fight pell-mell

To find a starry vent.

Sick in the hold battened, far from home careening,

Our Pisgah sighted through a chink of flutes,

Touch no dark relics, darling, overweening,

Lest your bright eyes engage the embarrassed brutes,

Mild, gold, or furious, endure the racking strings,

The anthem's shock, though it split the rivet vault.

We lurch to port, or think so, self-crowned kings,

Nor smell till three o'clock the encroaching salt.