Bayard Taylor
Ode on a Jar of Pickles
(Keats)
I.
A sweet, acidulous, down-reaching thrill
Pervades my sense: I seem to see or hear
The lushy garden-grounds of Greenwich Hill
In autumn, when the crispy leaves are sere:
And odours haunt me of remotest spice
From the Levant or musky-aired Cathay,
Or from the saffron-fields of Jericho,
Where everything is nice:
The more I sniff, the more I swoon away,
And what else mortal palate craves, forgo.
II.
Odours unsmelled are keen, but those I smell
Are keener; wherefore let me sniff again!
Enticing walnuts, I have known ye well
In youth, when pickles were a passing pain;
Unwitting youth, that craves the candy stem,
And sugar-plums to olives doth prefer,
And even licks the pots of marmalade
When sweetness clings to them:
But now I dream of ambergris and myrrh,
Tasting these walnuts in the poplar shade.
III.
Lo! hoarded coolness in the heart of noon,
Plucked with its dew, the cucumber is here,
As to the Dryad’s parching lips a boon,
And crescent bean-pods, unto Bacchus dear;
And, last of all, the pepper’s pungent globe,
The scarlet dwelling of the sylph of fire,
Provoking purple draughts; and, surfeited,
I cast my trailing robe
O’er my pale feet, touch up my tuneless lyre,
And twist the Delphic wreath to suit my head.
IV.
Here shall my tongue in other wise be soured
Than fretful men’s in parched and palsied days;
And, by the mid-May’s dusky leaves embowered,
Forget the fruitful blame, the scanty praise.
No sweets to them who sweet themselves were born,
Whose natures ooze with lucent saccharine;
Who, with sad repetition soothly cloyed,
The lemon-tinted morn
Enjoy, and find acetic twilight fine:
Wake I, or sleep? The pickle-jar is void.
Gwendoline
(E. B. Browning)
’Twas not the brown of chestnut boughs
That shadowed her so finely;
It was the hair that swept her brows
And framed her face divinely;
Her tawny hair, her purple eyes,
The spirit was ensphered in,
That took you with such swift surprise,
Provided you had peered in.
Her velvet foot amid the moss
And on the daisies patted,
As, querulous with sense of loss,
It tore the herbage matted:
‘And come he early, come he late,’
She saith, ’it will undo me;
The sharp fore-speeded shaft of fate
Already quivers through me.
‘When I beheld his red-roan steed,
I knew what aim impelled it;
And that dim scarf of silver brede,
I guessed for whom he held it;
I recked not, while he flaunted by,
Of Love’s relentless vi’lence,
Yet o’er me crashed the summer sky,
In thunders of blue silence.
‘His hoof-prints crumbled down the vale,
But left behind their lava;
What should have been my woman’s mail,
Grew jellied as guava:
I looked him proud, but ’neath my pride
I felt a boneless tremor;
He was the Beër, I descried,
And I was but the Seemer!
‘Ah, how to be what then I seemed,
And bid him seem that is so!
We always tangle threads we dreamed,
And contravene our bliss so.
I see the red-roan steed again!
He looks, as something sought he:
Why, hoity toity!—he is fain,
So I’ll be cold and haughty!’
Angelo Orders His Dinner
(R. Browning)
I, Angelo, obese, black-garmented,
Respectable, much in demand, well fed
With mine own larder’s dainties,—where, indeed,
Such cakes of myrrh or fine alyssum seed,
Thin as a mallow-leaf, embrowned o’ the top,
Which, cracking, lets the ropy, trickling drop
Of sweetness touch your tongue, or potted nests
Which my recondite recipe invests
With cold conglomerate tidbits—ah, the bill!
(You say,) but given it were mine to fill
My chests, the case so put were yours, we’ll say,
(This counter, here, your post, as mine to-day,)
And you’ve an eye to luxuries, what harm
In smoothing down your palate with the charm
Yourself concocted? There we issue take;
And see! as thus across the rim I break
This puffy paunch of glazed embroidered cake,
So breaks, through use, the lust of watering chaps
And craveth plainness: do I so? Perhaps;
But that’s my secret. Find me such a man
As Lippo yonder, built upon the plan
Of heavy storage, double-navelled, fat
From his own giblets’ oil, an Ararat
Uplift o’er water, sucking rosy draughts
From Noah’s vineyard,—... crisp, enticing wafts
Yon kitchen now emits, which to your sense
Somewhat abate the fear of old events,
Qualms to the stomach,—I, you see, am slow
Unnecessary duties to forgo,—
You understand? A venison haunch, haut goût,
Ducks that in Cimbrian olives mildly stew,
And sprigs of anise, might one’s teeth provoke
To taste, and so we wear the complex yoke
Just as it suits,—my liking, I confess,
More to receive, and to partake no less,
Still more obese, while through thick adipose
Sensation shoots, from testing tongue to toes
Far-off, dim-conscious, at the body’s verge,
Where the froth-whispers of its waves emerge
On the untasting sand. Stay, now! a seat
Is bare: I, Angelo, will sit and eat.
The Shrimp-Gatherers
(Jean Ingelow)
Scarlet spaces of sand and ocean,
Gulls that circle and winds that blow;
Baskets and boats and men in motion,
Sailing and scattering to and fro.
Girls are waiting, their wimples adorning
With crimson sprinkles the broad grey flood;
And down the beach the blush of the morning
Shines reflected from moisture and mud.
Broad from the yard the sails hang limpy;
Lightly the steersman whistles a lay;
Pull with a will, for the nets are shrimpy,
Pull with a whistle, our hearts are gay!
Tuppence a quart; there are more than fifty!
Coffee is certain, and beer galore:
Coats are corduroy, and minds are thrifty,
Won’t we go it on sea and shore!
See, behind, how the hills are freckled
With low white huts, where the lasses bide!
See, before, how the sea is speckled
With sloops and schooners that wait the tide!
Yarmouth fishers may rail and roister,
Tyne-side boys may shout, ‘Give way!’
Let them dredge for the lobster and oyster,
Pink and sweet are our shrimps to-day!
Shrimps and the delicate periwinkle,
Such are the sea-fruits lasses love:
Ho! to your nets till the blue stars twinkle,
And the shutterless cottages gleam above!
Cimabuella
(D. G. Rossetti)
I.
Fair-tinted cheeks, clear eyelids drawn
In crescent curves above the light
Of eyes, whose dim, uncertain dawn
Becomes not day: a forehead white
Beneath long yellow heaps of hair:
She is so strange she must be fair.
II.
Had she sharp, slant-wise wings outspread,
She were an angel; but she stands
With flat dead gold behind her head,
And lilies in her long thin hands:
Her folded mantle, gathered in,
Falls to her feet as it were tin.
III.
Her nose is keen as pointed flame;
Her crimson lips no thing express;
And never dread of saintly blame
Held down her heavy eyelashes:
To guess what she were thinking of,
Precludeth any meaner love.
IV.
An azure carpet, fringed with gold,
Sprinkled with scarlet spots, I laid
Before her straight, cool feet unrolled:
But she nor sound nor movement made
(Albeit I heard a soft, shy smile,
Printing her neck a moment’s while);
V.
And I was shamed through all my mind
For that she spake not, neither kissed,
But stared right past me. Lo! behind
Me stood, in pink and amethyst,
Sword-girt and velvet-doubleted,
A tall, gaunt youth, with frowzy head,
VI.
Wide nostrils in the air, dull eyes,
Thick lips that simpered, but, ah me!
I saw, with most forlorn surprise,
He was the Thirteenth Century,
I but the Nineteenth: then despair
Curdled beneath my curling hair.
VII.
O, Love and Fate! How could she choose
My rounded outlines, broader brain,
And my resuscitated Muse?
Some tears she shed, but whether pain
Or joy in him unlocked their source,
I could not fathom which, of course.
VIII.
But I from missals, quaintly bound,
With cither and with clavichord
Will sing her songs of sovran sound:
Belike her pity will afford
Such faint return as suits a saint
So sweetly done in verse and paint.
From ‘The Taming of Themistocles.’
(William Morris)
‘He must be holpen; yet how help shall I,
Steeped to the lips in ancient misery,
And by the newer grief apparellèd?
If that I throw these ashes on mine head,
Do this thing for thee,—while about my way
A shadow gathers, and the piteous day,
So wan and bleak for very loneliness,
Turneth from sight of such untruthfulness?’
Therewith he caught an arrow from the sheaf,
And brake the shaft in witlessness of grief;
But Chiton’s vest, such dismal fear she had,
Shook from the heart that sorely was a-drad,
And she began, withouten any pause,
To say: ‘Why break the old Ætolian laws?
Send this man forth, that never harm hath done,
Between the risen and the setten sun.’
And next, they wandered to a steepy hill,
Whence all the land was lying grey and still,
And not a living creature there might be
From the cold mountains to the salt, cold sea;
Only, within a little cove, one sail
Shook, as it whimpered at the cruel gale,
And the mast moaned from chafing of the rope;
So all was pain: they saw not any hope.
All or Nothing
(Emerson)
Whoso answers my questions
Knoweth more than me;
Hunger is but knowledge
In a less degree:
Prophet, priest, and poet
Oft prevaricate,
And the surest sentence
Hath the greatest weight.
When upon my gaiters
Drops the morning dew,
Somewhat of Life’s riddle
Soaks my spirit through.
I am buskined by the goddess
Of Monadnock’s crest,
And my wings extended
Touch the East and West.
Or ever coal was hardened
In the cells of earth,
Or flowed the founts of Bourbon,
Lo! I had my birth.
I am crowned coeval
With the Saurian eggs,
And my fancy firmly
Stands on its own legs.
Wouldst thou know the secret
Of the barberry-bush,
Catch the slippery whistle
Of the moulting thrush,
Dance upon the mushrooms,
Dive beneath the sea,
Or anything else remarkable,
Thou must follow me!
The Ballad of Hiram Hover
(Whittier)
Where the Moosatockmaguntic
Pours its waters in the Skuntic,
Met, along the forest-side,
Hiram Hover, Huldah Hyde.
She, a maiden fair and dapper,
He, a red-haired, stalwart trapper,
Hunting beaver, mink, and skunk,
In the woodlands of Squeedunk.
She, Pentucket’s pensive daughter,
Walked beside the Skuntic water,
Gathering, in her apron wet,
Snakeroot, mint, and bouncing-bet.
‘Why,’ he murmured, loath to leave her,
‘Gather yarbs for chills and fever,
When a lovyer, bold and true,
Only waits to gather you?’
‘Go,’ she answered, ‘I’m not hasty;
I prefer a man more tasty:
Leastways, one to please me well
Should not have a beasty smell.’
‘Haughty Huldah!’ Hiram answered;
‘Mind and heart alike are cancered:
Jest look here! these peltries give
Cash, wherefrom a pair may live.
‘I, you think, am but a vagrant,
Trapping beasts by no means fragrant:
Yet—I’m sure it’s worth a thank—
I’ve a handsome sum in bank.’
Turned and vanished Hiram Hover;
And, before the year was over,
Huldah, with the yarbs she sold,
Bought a cape, against the cold.
Black and thick the furry cape was;
Of a stylish cut the shape was,
And the girls, in all the town,
Envied Huldah up and down.
Then, at last, one winter morning,
Hiram came, without a warning:
‘Either,’ said he, ‘you are blind,
Huldah, or you’ve changed your mind.
‘Me you snub for trapping varmints,
Yet you take the skins for garments:
Since you wear the skunk and mink,
There’s no harm in me, I think.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘we will not quarrel,
Hiram: I accept the moral,
Now the fashion’s so, I guess
I can’t hardly do no less.’
Thus the trouble all was over
Of the love of Hiram Hover;
Thus he made sweet Huldah Hyde
Huldah Hover as his bride.
Love employs, with equal favour,
Things of good and evil savour;
That, which first appeared to part,
Warmed, at last, the maiden’s heart.
Under one impartial banner,
Life, the hunter, Love, the tanner,
Draw, from every beast they snare,
Comfort for a wedded pair!
The Sewing-Machine
(Longfellow)
A strange vibration from the cottage window
My vagrant steps delayed,
And half abstracted, like an ancient Hindoo,
I paused beneath the shade.
What is, I said, this unremitted humming,
Louder than bees in spring?
As unto prayer the murmurous answer coming,
Shed from Sandalphon’s wing.
Is this the sound of unimpeded labour,
That now usurpeth play?
Our harsher substitute for pipe and tabor,
Ghittern and virelay?
Or, is it yearning for a higher vision,
By spiritual hearing heard?
Nearer I drew, to listen with precision,
Detecting not a word.
Then, peering through the pane, as men of sin do,
Myself the while unseen,
I marked a maiden seated by the window,
Sewing with a machine.
Her gentle foot propelled the tireless treadle,
Her gentle hand the seam:
My fancy said, it were a bliss to peddle
Those shirts, as in a dream!
Her lovely fingers lent to yoke and collar
Some imperceptible taste;
The rural swain, who buys it for a dollar,
By beauty is embraced.
O fairer aspect of the common mission!
Only the Poet sees
The true significance, the high position
Of such small things as these.
Not now doth Toil, a brutal Boanerges,
Deform the maiden’s hand;
Her implement its soft sonata merges
In songs of sea and land.
And thus the hum of the unspooling cotton,
Blent with her rhythmic tread,
Shall still be heard, when virelays are forgotten,
And troubadours are dead.