Blagdaross

On a waste place strewn with bricks in the outskirts of a town twilight
was falling. A star or two appeared over the smoke, and distant windows
lit mysterious lights. The stillness deepened and the loneliness. Then
all the outcast things that are silent by day found voices.



An old cork spoke first. He said: "I grew in Andalusian woods, but
never listened to the idle songs of Spain. I only grew strong in the
sunlight waiting for my destiny. One day the merchants cane and took us
all away and carried us all along the shore of the sea, piled high on
the backs of donkeys, and in a town by the sea they made me into the
shape that I am now. One day they sent me northward to Provence, and
there I fulfilled my destiny. For they set me as a guard over the
bubbling wine, and I faithfully stood sentinel for twenty years. For
the first few years in the bottle that I guarded the wine slept,
dreaming of Provence; but as the years went on he grew stronger and
stronger, until at last whenever a man went by the wine would put out
all his might against me, saying: 'Let me go free; let me go free!' And
every year his strength increased, and he grew more clamorous when men
went by, but never availed to hurl me from my post. But when I had
powerfully held him for twenty years they brought him to the banquet
and took me from my post, and the wine arose
rejoicing and leapt through the veins of men and exalted their souls
within them till they stood up in their places and sang Provencal
songs. But me they cast away--me that had been sentinel for twenty
years, and was still as strong and staunch as when first I went on
guard. Now I am an outcast in a cold northern city, who once have known
the Andalusian skies and guarded long ago Provencal suns that swam in
the heart of the rejoicing wine.