Volume Iv Part 18 (1/2)
Let it be as it may, Rose kissed me to-day But the pleasure gives way To a savor of sorrow;-- Rose kissed me to-day,-- Will she kiss me to-morrow?
Austin Dobson [1840-1921]
BIFTEK AUX CHAMPIGNONS
Mimi, do you remember-- Don't get behind your fan-- That morning in September On the cliffs of Grand Manan, Where to the shock of Fundy The topmost harebells sway (Campanula rotundi- folia: cf. Gray)?
On the pastures high and level, That overlook the sea, Where I wondered what the devil Those little things could be That Mimi stooped to gather, As she strolled across the down, And held her dress skirt rather-- Oh, now, you need n't frown.
For you know the dew was heavy, And your boots, I know, were thin; So a little extra brevi- ty in skirts was, sure, no sin.
Besides, who minds a cousin?
First, second, even third,-- I've kissed 'em by the dozen, And they never once demurred.
”If one's allowed to ask it,”
Quoth I, ” ma belle cousine, What have you in your basket?”
(Those baskets white and green The brave Pa.s.samaquoddies Weave out of scented gra.s.s, And sell to tourist bodies Who through Mt. Desert pa.s.s.)
You answered, slightly frowning, ”Put down your stupid book-- That everlasting Browning!-- And come and help me look.
Mushroom you spik him English, I call him champignon: I'll teach you to distinguish The right kind from the wrong.”
There was no fog on Fundy That blue September day; The west wind, for that one day, Had swept it all away.
The lighthouse gla.s.ses twinkled, The white gulls screamed and flew, The merry sheep-bells tinkled, The merry breezes blew.
The bayberry aromatic, The papery immortelle, (That give our grandma's attic That sentimental smell, Tied up in little brush-brooms) Were sweet as new-mown hay, While we went hunting mushrooms That blue September day.
Henry Augustin Beers [1847-1926]
EVOLUTION
When you were a Tadpole and I was a Fish, In the Paleozoic time, And side by side on the ebbing tide, We sprawled through the ooze and slime, Or skittered with many a caudal flip Through the depths of the Cambrian fen-- My heart was rife with the joy of life, For I loved you even then.
Mindless we lived, mindless we loved, And mindless at last we died; And deep in the rift of a Caradoc drift We slumbered side by side.
The world turned on in the lathe of time, The hot sands heaved amain, Till we caught our breath from the womb of death, And crept into life again.
We were Amphibians, scaled and tailed, And drab as a dead man's hand.
We coiled at ease 'neath the dripping trees Or trailed through the mud and sand, Croaking and blind, with our three-clawed feet, Writing a language dumb, With never a spark in the empty dark To hint at a life to come.
Yet happy we lived, and happy we loved, And happy we died once more.
Our forms were rolled in the clinging mold Of a Neocomian sh.o.r.e.
The aeons came and the aeons fled, And the sleep that wrapped us fast Was riven away in a newer day, And the night of death was past.
Then light and swift through the jungle trees We swung in our airy flights, Or breathed the balms of the fronded palms In the hush of the moonless nights.
And oh, what beautiful years were these When our hearts clung each to each; When life was filled and our senses thrilled In the first faint dawn of speech!