Those Pickles of Marm’s
It doesn’t need eyesight to tell that it’s fall,
Up here in Maine.
Though the glamor of yellow is over it all,
And the cold, swishing rain
Comes peltering down and goes stripping the leaves,
And smokes in cold spray from the edge of the eaves.
All, it’s wild out of doors, but come in here with me
Where mother’s as busy as busy can be.
And you need not your eyes, sir, to know it is fall
In this stifle and stirring and steam like a pall.
For there’s savor of spices and odorous charms
When your nose gets a sniff of these pickles of marm’s.
You know it is fall without using your eyes,
Up here in Maine.
There is fragrance that floats as the flower-pot dies
In the tears of the rain.
And the hand of the frost strips the sheltering leaves
From the pumpkins, those bombs of the sentinel sheaves
That stiffly and starkly keep gnard in the field,
A desolate rank without weapon or shield.
And the fragrance of death like a delicate musk
Floats up from the field through the crispness of dusk;
Yet out from the kitchen, more savory far,
Drifts the fragrance of pickles compounded by ma.
The autumn sweeps past like a dame to a ball,
Up here in Maine.
Her perfumes would stagger shy Springtime, but
Fall,
Like a matron of Spain,
Puts musk in her bosom and scent on her hair,
And prinks her gay robe with elaborate care.
Yet the fragrance she sheds has the savor of death,
The brain is turned giddy beneath her fierce breath,
Till over it all floats the vigorous scent
Of spices and hot things and good things, all blent.
It’s wonderful, friend, how it tickles and calms,
—That whiff from those simmering pickles of marm’s.