A Leap Year Episode.
Such oranges! so fresh and sweet,
So large and lovely—and so cheap!
They lay in one delicious heap,
And added to the sumptuous feast
For each and all in taste expert
The acme of all fine dessert;
So, singling out the very least
As in itself an ample treat,
While sparkling repartee and jest
Exhilarated host and guest,
Of rarity so delicate
In dreamy reverie I ate,
By magic pinions as it were
Transported from this realm of snows
To be a happy sojourner
Away down where the orange grows;
Amid the bloom, the verdure, and
The beauty of that tropic land,
While redolence seemed wafted in
From orchard-groves of Mandarin.
In dinner costume a la mode,
Expressing from the spongy skin
The nectar that ran down her chin
In little rills of lusciousness,
Sat Maud, the beautiful coquette;
Her dainty mouth, like "two lips" wet
With morning dew, her crimson dress,
A sad discoloration showed
Where orange-juice—it was a sin!—
A polka-dot had painted in;
Which moved the roguish girl to say
Half-ruefully (half-décolleté)—
"I'm glad it's Leap Year now, for I—"
Her voice was like a moistened lute
"Shall wear the flowers, by and by—
I do not like this leaky fruit!"
And looking straight and saucily
At cousin Ned, her vis-a-vis;
While Will, who never dared propose,
Was blushing like a red, red rose.
The company was large, and she
Touched elbows with the exquisite,
Gay Archibald, who took her wit
And pertness all as meant for him;
Who, thereby lifted some degrees
Above less-favored devotees,
With rainbow sails began to trim
His craft of sweet felicity;
So mirth in reckless afterlude
Convulsed the merry multitude,
Who laughed at Archie's self-esteem,
And pitied Will's long-cherished dream;
While all declared, for her and Ned—
His face was like a silver tray—
The wedding-banquet should be spread
Before a twelvemonth passed away.
But, ah, the sequel—blind were we
To woman and her strategy!
For he so long afraid to speak
Bore off the bride within a week.
If.
If all the sermons good men preach
And all the precepts that they teach
Were gathered into one
Unbroken line of silver speech,
The shining filament might reach
From earth unto the sun.
If all the stories ever told
By wild romancers, young or old,
Into a thread were drawn,
And from its cable coil unrolled,
'Twould span those misty hills of gold
That heaven seems resting on.