The Dram
Give me wet barley husks and gaping grist
washback malt and worts and sweetened sparge.
Let me add fonts of gurgling peaty stream
or icy gleaming springs fresh with white pearls.
From brimming tuns of yeast and swirling hot,
let low wines brought by throbbing veins drift up
through copper still and copper still and still.
Let glassy spirit rise, distilled and pure,
make feints with head and tail and fiscal form -
a young mermaid so pristine and yet so strong.
And let me smell her alchemy at last
in sherry, cherry red or bourbon brass.
And in the cask house, let me with angels share
this taste of Scotland's honeyed paradise.