Poems From The Breakfast Table | Page 8

juices (decoction) still bright with the sun, Till o'er the brimmed crystal the rubies (dye-stuff) shall run.
The purple-globed clusters (half-ripened apples) their life-dews have
bled;?How sweet is the breath (taste) of the fragrance they shed!(sugar of lead)?For summer's last roses (rank poisons) lie hid in the wines (wines!!!) That were garnered by maidens who laughed through the vines (stable-boys smoking long-nines)
Then a smile (scowl) and a glass (howl) and a toast (scoff) and a cheer (sneer);?For all the good wine, and we 've some of it here! (strychnine and whiskey, and ratsbane and beer!)?In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall,?Long live the gay servant that laughs for us all! (Down, down with the tyrant that masters us all!)
POEMS FROM THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE
1858-1859
UNDER THE VIOLETS
HER hands are cold; her face is white;?No more her pulses come and go;?Her eyes are shut to life and light;--?Fold the white vesture, snow on snow,?And lay her where the violets blow.
But not beneath a graven stone,?To plead for tears with alien eyes;?A slender cross of wood alone?Shall say, that here a maiden lies?In peace beneath the peaceful skies.
And gray old trees of hugest limb?Shall wheel their circling shadows round?To make the scorching sunlight dim?That drinks the greenness from the ground,?And drop their dead leaves on her mound.
When o'er their boughs the squirrels run,?And through their leaves the robins call,?And, ripening in the autumn sun,?The acorns and the chestnuts fall,?Doubt not that she will heed them all.
For her the morning choir shall sing?Its matins from the branches high,?And every minstrel-voice of Spring,?That trills beneath the April sky,?Shall greet her with its earliest cry.
When, turning round their dial-track,?Eastward the lengthening shadows pass,?Her little mourners, clad in black,?The crickets, sliding through the grass,?Shall pipe for her an evening mass.
At last the rootlets of the trees?Shall find the prison where she lies,?And bear the buried dust they seize?In leaves and blossoms to the skies.?So may the soul that warmed it rise!
If any, born of kindlier blood,?Should ask, What maiden lies below??Say only this: A tender bud,?That tried to blossom in the snow,?Lies withered where the violets blow.
HYMN OF TRUST
O Love Divine, that stooped to share?Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear,?On Thee we cast each earth-born care,?We smile at pain while Thou art near!
Though long the weary way we tread,?And sorrow crown each lingering year,?No path we shun, no darkness dread,?Our hearts still whispering, Thou art near!
When drooping pleasure turns to grief,?And trembling faith is changed to fear,?The murmuring wind, the quivering leaf,?Shall softly tell us, Thou art near!
On Thee we fling our burdening woe,?O Love Divine, forever dear,?Content to suffer while we know,?Living and dying, Thou art near!
A SUN-DAY HYMN
LORD of all being! throned afar,?Thy glory flames from sun and star;?Centre and soul of every sphere,?Yet to each loving heart how near!
Sun of our life, thy quickening ray?Sheds on our path the glow of day;?Star of our hope, thy softened light?Cheers the long watches of the night.
Our midnight is thy smile withdrawn;?Our noontide is thy gracious dawn;?Our rainbow arch thy mercy's sign;?All, save the clouds of sin, are thin!
Lord of all life, below, above,?Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love,?Before thy ever-blazing throne?We ask no lustre of our own.
Grant us thy truth to make us free,?And kindling hearts that burn for thee,?Till all thy living altars claim?One holy light, one heavenly flame!
THE CROOKED FOOTPATH
AH, here it is! the sliding rail?That marks the old remembered spot,--?The gap that struck our school-boy trail,--?The crooked path across the lot.
It left the road by school and church,?A pencilled shadow, nothing more,?That parted from the silver-birch?And ended at the farm-house door.
No line or compass traced its plan;?With frequent bends to left or right,?In aimless, wayward curves it ran,?But always kept the door in sight.
The gabled porch, with woodbine green,--?The broken millstone at the sill,--?Though many a rood might stretch between,?The truant child could see them still.
No rocks across the pathway lie,--?No fallen trunk is o'er it thrown,--?And yet it winds, we know not why,?And turns as if for tree or stone.
Perhaps some lover trod the way?With shaking knees and leaping heart,--?And so it often runs astray?With sinuous sweep or sudden start.
Or one, perchance, with clouded brain?From some unholy banquet reeled,--?And since, our devious steps maintain?His track across the trodden field.
Nay, deem not thus,--no earthborn will?Could ever trace a faultless line;?Our truest steps are human still,--?To walk unswerving were divine!
Truants from love, we dream of wrath;?Oh, rather let us trust the more!?Through all the wanderings of the path,?We still can see our Father's door!
IRIS, HER BOOK
I PRAY thee by the soul of her that bore thee,?By thine own sister's spirit I implore thee,?Deal gently with the leaves that lie before thee!
For Iris had no mother to infold her,?Nor ever leaned upon a sister's shoulder,?Telling the twilight thoughts that Nature told her.
She had