The War-God now is happy.
His sunken eyeballs shine.
The War-God is a Vintner
Who makes the rarest wine.
His vineyard is not bounded
Between the West and East.
A thousand mothers hourly
Grow pregnant for his feast.
The grapes the Vintner presses
Below his granite feet
Are bodies, bodies, bodies,
Alive and brown and sweet.
O how the red juice splashes
Around his pounding limbs!
It stains the deepest rivers,
The furthest sunset rims.
O how the Gods his comrades,
When he, the Vintner, calls,
Drain deep the lurid beakers
In their carousal halls!
All night they hold red riot,
"For this is wine indeed!
Then bravo! merry Vintner,
We wish thy work good speed!"
And still the Vintner presses
The grapes with feet of stone,
Until the deep green ocean-cup
Shall hold red wine alone.