Poems from The Teacups | Page 2

the feathery fern,--
A leaf without a flower.
What though the rose leaves fall? They still are sweet,
And have been
lovely in their beauteous prime,
While the bare frond seems ever to
repeat,
"For us no bud, no blossom, wakes to greet
The joyous
flowering time!"
Heed thou the lesson. Life has leaves to tread
And flowers to cherish;
summer round thee glows;
Wait not till autumn's fading robes are
shed,
But while its petals still are burning red
Gather life's
full-blown rose!

I LIKE YOU AND I LOVE YOU
I LIKE YOU Met I LOVE You, face to face;
The path was narrow,
and they could not pass.
I LIKE YOU smiled; I LOVE YOU cried,
Alas!
And so they halted for a little space.
"Turn thou and go before," I LOVE YOU said,
"Down the green
pathway, bright with many a flower;
Deep in the valley, lo! my bridal
bower
Awaits thee." But I LIKE YOU shook his head.
Then while they lingered on the span-wide shelf
That shaped a
pathway round the rocky ledge,
I LIKE You bared his icy dagger's
edge,
And first he slew I LOVE You,--then himself.
LA MAISON D'OR
(BAR HARBOR)
FROM this fair home behold on either side
The restful mountains or
the restless sea
So the warm sheltering walls of life divide
Time and
its tides from still eternity.
Look on the waves: their stormy voices teach
That not on earth may
toil and struggle cease.
Look on the mountains: better far than speech

Their silent promise of eternal peace.
TOO YOUNG FOR LOVE
Too young for love?
Ah, say not so!
Tell reddening rose-buds not
to blow
Wait not for spring to pass away,--
Love's summer months
begin with May!
Too young for love?
Ah, say not so!
Too young?
Too young?
Ah, no! no! no!
Too young for love?
Ah, say not so,
To practise all love learned in
May.
June soon will come with lengthened day
While daisies
bloom and tulips glow!

Too young for love?
Ah, say not so!
Too young? Too young?
Ah,
no! no! no
THE BROOMSTICK TRAIN; OR,
THE RETURN OF THE
WITCHES
LOOK out! Look out, boys! Clear the track!
The witches are here!
They've all come back!
They hanged them high,--No use! No use!

What cares a witch for a hangman's noose?
They buried them deep,
but they wouldn't lie still,
For cats and witches are hard to kill;

They swore they shouldn't and wouldn't die,--
Books said they did,
but they lie! they lie!
A couple of hundred years, or so,
They had knocked about in the
world below,
When an Essex Deacon dropped in to call,
And a
homesick feeling seized them all;
For he came from a place they
knew full well,
And many a tale he had to tell.
They longed to visit
the haunts of men,
To see the old dwellings they knew again,
And
ride on their broomsticks all around
Their wide domain of
unhallowed ground.
In Essex county there's many a roof
Well known to him of the cloven
hoof;
The small square windows are full in view
Which the
midnight hags went sailing through,
On their well-trained
broomsticks mounted high,
Seen like shadows against the sky;

Crossing the track of owls and bats,
Hugging before them their
coal-black cats.
Well did they know, those gray old wives,
The sights we see in our
daily drives
Shimmer of lake and shine of sea,
Browne's bare hill
with its lonely tree,
(It was n't then as we see it now,
With one scant
scalp-lock to shade its brow;)
Dusky nooks in the Essex woods,

Dark, dim, Dante-like solitudes,
Where the tree-toad watches the
sinuous snake
Glide through his forests of fern and brake;
Ipswich

River; its old stone bridge;
Far off Andover's Indian Ridge,
And
many a scene where history tells
Some shadow of bygone terror
dwells,--
Of "Norman's Woe" with its tale of dread,
Of the
Screeching Woman of Marblehead,
(The fearful story that turns men
pale
Don't bid me tell it,--my speech would fail.)
Who would not, will not, if he can,
Bathe in the breezes of fair Cape
Ann,--
Rest in the bowers her bays enfold,
Loved by the sachems
and squaws of old?
Home where the white magnolias bloom,
Sweet
with the bayberry's chaste perfume,
Hugged by the woods and kissed
by the sea!
Where is the Eden like to thee?
For that "couple of
hundred years, or so,"
There had been no peace in the world below;

The witches still grumbling, "It is n't fair;
Come, give us a taste of the
upper air!
We 've had enough of your sulphur springs,
And the evil
odor that round them clings;
We long for a drink that is cool and
nice,--
Great buckets of water with Wenham ice;
We've served you
well up-stairs, you know;
You 're a good old--fellow--come, let us
go!"
I don't feel sure of his being good,
But he happened to be in a
pleasant mood,--
As fiends with their skins full sometimes are,--

(He'd been drinking with "roughs" at a Boston bar.)
So what does he
do but up and shout
To a graybeard turnkey, "Let 'em out!"
To mind his orders was all he knew;
The gates swung open, and out
they flew.
"Where are our broomsticks?" the beldams cried.
"Here
are your broomsticks," an imp replied.
"They 've been in--the place
you know--so