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 Autumn and dead leaves burning in the sharp air, 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 center 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 cabbage 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 bright ness Under a gray dust, Then gushed thrilling, purple blood over the fire; And enameled crab-apples that tricked with their fragrance 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, Stirring, tasting, measuring, With the precision of a ritual. I like to think of you in your years of power- High priestess of your home! Reprinted by permission of, and by special arrangement with, B. W. Huebsch, Inc., New York. Copyrighted. The Two Houses Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy is an English writer, born in 1840. He first wrote novels, among them "Tess of the D'Urbervilles," and did not take up poetry until he was nearly sixty. His collected poems were published by The Macmillan Company, New York, in 1919. This poem may be read as direct conversation, yet there must be something of dignity and solitude and deep philosophy in the manner of its rendering. IN the heart of night, When farers were not near, The left house said to the house on the right, "I have marked your rise, O smart newcomer here!" Said the right, cold-eyed: "Newcomer here I am, Hence haler than you with your cracked old hide, Loose casements, wormy beams, and doors that jam. "Modern my wood, My hangings fair of hue; While my windows open as they should And water-pipes thread all my chambers through. "Your gear is gray, Your face wears furrows untold." "Yours might," mourned the other, "if you held, brother, The Presences from aforetime that I hold. "You have not known Men's lives, deaths, toils, and teens; "Void as a drum You stand: I am packed with these; Though, strangely, living dwellers who come See not the phantoms all my substance sees! "Visible in the morning Stand they, when dawn crawls in; Visible at night; yet hint or warning Of these thin elbowers few of the inmates win. "Babes new brought forth Obsess my rooms; straight-stretched Lank corpses, ere outborne to earth; Yes, throng they as when first from the void upfetched! "Dancers and singers Throb in me now as once; Rich-noted throats and gossamered flingers Of heels; the learned in love-lore, and the dunce. "Note here within The bridegroom and the bride, Who smile and greet their friends and kin, And down my stairs depart for tracts untried. "Where such inbe, A dwelling's character Takes theirs, and a vague semblancy To them in all its limbs and light and atmosphere. "Yet the blind folk, My tenants, who come and go In the flesh mid these, with souls unwoke, Of such sylph-like surrounders do not know." "Will the day come," Said the new-built, awestruck, faint, "When I shall lodge shades dim and dumb, And with such spectral guests become acquaint?" "_That will it, boy; Such shades will people thee, Each in his misery, irk, or joy, And print on thee their presences as on me!" Reprinted by permission of, and by special arrangement with, The Macmillan Company. Copyrighted by The Macmillan Company. The Chaperon Henry Cuyler Bunner Henry Cuyler Bunner, for several years the editor of Punch, was born at Oswego, New York, in 1855, and died at Nutley, New Jersey, in 1896. His poems are noted for their grace and lightness of touch. Youth and coquetry predominate in this poem, but there is an undertone of tragedy which should not be neglected. I TAKE my chaperon to the play— She thinks she is taking me. And the gilded youth who owns the box, But how would his young heart be hurt That not for his sweet sake I go Nor yet to see the trifling show; But to see my chaperon flirt! Her eyes beneath her snowy hair, |