As he, defeated, dying,

On whose forbidden ear

The distant strains of triumph

Break, agonized and clear.

Emily Dickinson

I TASTE A LIQUOR NEVER BREWED1

I taste a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!

Inebriate of air am I,

And debauchee of dew,

Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.

When landlords turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove's door,

When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!

Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,

To see the little tippler

Leaning against the sun!

AUTUMN

TO MY MOTHER

-Emily Dickinson

How memory cuts away the years,
And how clean the picture comes

1 Copyright by Little, Brown and Company.

Of autumn days, brisk and busy;
Charged with keen sunshine.
And you, stirred with activity,
The spirit of those energetic days.

There was our back-yard,

So plain and stripped of green,

With even the weeds carefully pulled away

From the crooked red bricks that made the walk,
And the earth on either side so black.

Autumn and dead leaves burning in the sharp air.
And winter comforts coming in like a pageant.

I shall not forget them:

Great jars laden with the raw green of pickles,

Standing in a solemn row across the back of the porch,
Exhaling the pungent dill;

And in the very centre of the yard,

You, tending the great catsup kettle of gleaming copper,

Where fat, red tomatoes bobbed up and down

Like jolly monks in a drunken dance.

And there were bland banks of cabbages that came by the

wagon-load,

Soon to be cut into delicate ribbons

Only to be crushed by the heavy, wooden stompers.

Such feathery whiteness to come to kraut!

And after, there were grapes that hid their brightness under

a grey dust,

Then gushed thrilling, purple blood over the fire;

And enamelled crab-apples that tricked with their fra

grance

But were bitter to taste.

And there were spicy plums and ill-shaped quinces,

And long string beans floating in pans of clear water

Like slim, green fishes.

And there was fish itself,

Salted, silver herring from the city.

And you moved among these mysteries,
Absorbed and smiling and sure;
Stirring, tasting, measuring,

With the precision of a ritual.

I like to think of you in your years of power
You, now so shaken and so powerless
High priestess of your home.

Jean Starr Untermeyer

HIGH-TIDE

I edged back against the night.

The sea growled assault on the wave-bitten shore.
And the breakers,

Like young and impatient hounds,

Sprang with rough joy on the shrinking sand.

Sprang but were drawn back slowly

With a long, relentless pull,

Whimpering, into the dark.

Then I saw who held them captive;

And I saw how they were bound

With a broad and quivering leash of light,
Held by the moon,

As, calm and unsmiling,

She walked the deep fields of the sky.

- Jean Starr Untermeyer

Still dusk . . . as strange, as still . .
A white moth flew. Why am I grown

So cold?

- Adelaide Crapsey

ON SEEING WEATHER-BEATEN TREES

Is it as plainly in our living shown,

By slant and twist, which way the wind hath blown? - Adelaide Crapsey

MINIVER CHEEVY

Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,

Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;

He wept that he was ever born,

And he had reasons.

Miniver loved the days of old

When swords were bright and steeds were prancing; The vision of a warrior bold

Would set him dancing.

Miniver sighed for what was not,

And dreamed, and rested from his labors; He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,

And Priam's neighbors.

Miniver mourned the ripe renown

That made so many a name so fragrant; He mourned Romance, now on the town, And Art, a vagrant.

Miniver loved the Medici,

Albeit he had never seen one; He would have sinned incessantly Could he have been one.