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 came 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 wind 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 clamourous 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