From “Bitter Sweet” SIXTEEN barrels of cider Ripening all in a row! Open the vent-channels wider! See the froth, drifted like snow, Blown by the tempest below! Those delectable juices Flowed through the sinuous sluices Of sweet springs under the orchard; Climbed into fountains that chained them; Dripped into cups that retained them, And swelled till they dropped, and we gained them. Then they were gathered and tortured By passage from hopper to vat, And fell—every apple crushed flat. Ah! how the bees gathered round them, And how delicious they found them! Oat-straw as fragrant as clover, Was platted, and smoothly turned over, Weaving a neatly ribbed basket; And, as they built up the casket, In went the pulp by the scoop-full, Till the juice flowed by the stoup-full,— Filling the half of a puncheon While the men swallowed their luncheon. Pure grew the stream with the stress Of the lever and screw, Till the last drops from the press Were as bright as the dew. There were these juices spilled; There were these barrels filled; Sixteen barrels of cider— Ripening all in a row! Open the vent-channels wider! See the froth, drifted like snow, Blown by the tempest below!
In the Cellar
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From “Bitter Sweet” THUS is it all over the earth! That which we call the fairest, And prize for its surpassing worth, Is always rarest. Iron is heaped in mountain piles, And gluts the laggard forges; But gold-flakes gleam in dim defiles And lonely gorges. The snowy...
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From “Bitter Sweet” SIXTEEN barrels of cider Ripening all in a row! Open the vent-channels wider! See the froth, drifted like snow, Blown by the tempest below! Those delectable juices Flowed through the sinuous sluices Of sweet springs under the orchard; Climbed into fountains that chained them...
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From “Bitter-Sweet” WHAT is the little one thinking about? Very wonderful things, no doubt; Unwritten history! Unfathomed mystery! Yet he laughs and cries, and eats and drinks, And chuckles, and crows, and nods, and winks, As if his head were as full of kinks And curious riddles as any...
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Rockaby, lullaby, bees in the clover! Crooning so drowsily, crying so low, Rockaby, lullaby, dear little rover! Down into wonderland, Down to the under-land, Go, now go! Down into wonderland go. Rockaby, lullaby, rain on the clover, (Tears on the eyelids that waver and...
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