When Lorelei put on a birthday feast for Caia, one of the Arts & Sciences competitions was for a drinking song. Inspired partly by John Barleycorn, I tried for something metaphorical and simple, with an edge.
[February 2000]
By the wind and the weather
By the rain and the sun
By the seed sleeping deeply
We shall feed us every one.
For the oak in his splendour
From a seed he is grown;
From a poor fragile baby
Comes the ruler on his throne.
To the grain of the barley,
To the apples on the tree,
To the grape in the vinyard,
We shall drink in memory.
From a dream in the darkness
For our home on the sand,
We shall build us a kingdom,
We shall rule this southern land.