MUSE AND MINT

BY

WALTER S. PERCY

BOSTON
SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY
1914

Copyright, 1914
Sherman, French & Company

TO

MY DEAR MOTHER AND WIFE

WHO BEST LOVED MY MUSE
AND WHOSE LOVE WAS THE
MINT THAT EVER MADE IT
AN INSPIRATION AND JOY

MUSE AND MINT

I mused upon the strangeness of all things,

So different from the dream

Whereof the morning mounted up on wings

Above the world agleam

With light that trembled into life and love

As when a censer swings

And joy of promise sings—

“The dream whereof

The gleam above

The world is love!”

Oh, bitterness to muse and neither find

The beauty of the Muse

Nor yet the music which the soul divined

Ere set the rosy hues

In sombre lines that disenchant and fret

The heart with growing grief

Which struggles for relief—

“O Muse, but let

My spirit yet

The rue forget!”

As if to answer me a little child,

To whom the sunshine’s glint

Was gloom forever, on the corner smiled

And vended sprigs of mint,

As though there were in blindness still a bloom

And fragrance which could reach

The passer-by and teach—

“In glint or gloom

There’s mint in bloom

To earth perfume!”

CONTENTS

NATURE

FIREFLIES

The murky night hung dank and dark

The Summer shower after;

A distant dog’s staccato bark

Disturbed the strollers’ laughter;

The mournful whip-poor-will’s lament,

The frogs’ and crickets’ chorus

A weird, sepulchral feeling lent

To meadow-lot and morass.

A thousand insect-lanterns flashed

Their phosphorescent signals

Of living sparks that dot-and-dashed

Out swift electric riddles;

For scarcely was the eye upon

A single tiny glowlight

When wink, it flitted and was gone

Like prankish imp on show-night!

And while one guessed its next surprise

Afar from where it dwindled

A myriad others to the eyes

All intercrossed and kindled

Until the ghostly gloom became

Illumined with manœuvres

As though of fairies fanning flame

Within a park of lovers.

And thus does fancy people night

With fugitive creations

Of phantom-folk whose fitful light

Yet feeds our inspirations

And teaches us there is no dark

But fellowships the presence

Of every soul that sheds its spark

Of humble incandescence.

BO-PEEP

Everywhere I ramble

In the ides of May,

Through the boughs and bramble

The wood-nymphs play.

Where the sunshine dapples

Shadows all a-creep

Beneath the budding apples,

Dances Bo-Peep.

Over where the mosses

Make a coverlet

Which the Spring embosses

With a green fret,

From the long hibernal

Dreaminess of sleep

Wakes with dimples vernal

Little Bo-Peep.

Violets and bluets

Mischievously peek;

Monks like pigmy druids

Play at hide-and-seek;

O’er each stump a picket

Spies with cunning deep,

And in every thicket

Beckons Bo-Peep.

PEEP-OF-DAWN

The tallyho of slumber’s on

The last relay of dreams;

Posthaste it rides with ribbons drawn

O’er curvetting gray teams.

The wayside house just left behind

Was Where-the-Cock-Crew Inn;

The road ahead with rose is lined

And known as Work-to-Win.

Intoxicated senses sink

In visions of delight;

And Venus’ eye begins to wink

Where it outrides the night.

Sly fingers lift the window-shades,

But ere espied are gone;

And on the drowsy milking-maids

Tiptoes the Peep-of-Dawn.

Dame Nature in abandon lies

With skirts in disarray,

And overtaken with surprise

Is kissed by stealthy Day;

The coverts rub their eyes and wake,

And dreaming Love anon

Goes forth on Rosy Road to make

A tryst with Peep-of-Dawn.

THE RILLY RIVER

The cold and turbid flood of Spring

Has melted to the Summer shallow,

And now the vivid greeneries cling

Along the margin lush and fallow,

And where were sombre deeps and chills

Are silver trills of rippling rills.

The loiterer upon the bridge

Which o’er the eddying river poises

Salutes the island’s sandy ridge

That reappears; the eye rejoices

In all the old familiar frills

And saucy spills of rippling rills.

The rod and reel the rapture feel

And from the boat take finny chances,

But less for luck than with the keel

To be a part of runic dances;

For thus the river’s music thrills

Like joy that fills the rippling rills.

CHERRIES

Cherries! Cherries! Cherries!

The robins are excited and delighted

To change the fare at last;

For ’twas bugs and grubs and slugs

Over two months past.

Now it’s cherries till the berries

Ripen full and fast.

Cherries! Cherries! Cherries!

The robins are excited and affrighted;

There’s a man up the tree

In a big wig and rig

That would scare a chickadee—

But a robin—see him bobbin’

In a solemn colloquy!

Cherries! Cherries! Cherries!

The scare-crow is indicted and requited

With a pocketful of eggs

Baby-blue, with ’em too

Gettin’ ready bill and legs

For the Summer that’s a comer

When the cherry-season begs.

Cherries! Cherries! Cherries!

The robins are excited and delighted—

Not the redbreast but the kind

That eclipse with cherry lips

And are not a whit behind

Robin Jerries stealin’ cherries

When the dummy’s but a blind.

A SNOWFLAKE

Million-needled star of hoar,

Parachuting little kite

Sailing by my cottage-door,

Flurried, jostled, fairy-light—

Whither, whither, whence and why

Comest thou of crystal

From the welkin, hasting by

Like a lost epistle?

Softly did the snowflake sigh

“Read me as I rest awhile!”

So I read the whence and why;

For the snowflake is a smile,

Melting Heaven-dew congealed

Lest we miss its beauty,

Love in miracle revealed

On the wings of duty!

THE BLIZZARD

The whited pumice of the storm

Is over house and hill

Or drifted into shroudlike form

About the ruined mill.

The fences hide beneath the drifts;

The snowy terraces

Ascend to where the hemlock lifts

Its virgin-broidered dress.

The trackless highway challenges

The sweltered caravan

Of traffic and in fastnesses

Of chalk imprisons man.

The wind-wolves howl at cottage-door

Or down the chimney leap;

The windows all are rimed with hoar

Where frozen fingers creep.

The house-frame groans at blast and frost

Like quarry of the pack

O’ertaken, but though torn and tossed

Still stout of heart and back;

Still stout of heart like us secure

By ruddy fire warm,

Too humbly thankful to be poor

While sheltered from the storm.

SUGARING OFF

Essence of all that’s sweet, what joy

To watch thy amber flow

And sip thy nectar till it cloy

Or waxen it on snow!

What joy to watch the trickling veins

Of our old maple-friend

And know the vernal Odin reigns

As heir of Winter’s end!

Drink to the earnest of the Spring,

The ichor of the bud,

To all the rising hopes that sing

Of life and loverhood!

Drink to the sweetness in thee hid

By softer airs distilled;

Let Nature sugar off and bid

Her kindlier cup be filled!

THE CHRYSALIS

Come out of your Winter shell, old grub

Of horns and crusty twist,

And with your fellows elbows rub

More like a humanist!

A spiral armor’s very well

For its eccentric curve,

But not a gloomy hermit-cell

Of cynical reserve.

Come out of your Winter shell, old slug

Of dormant sense and soul!

You’re far too round and hard and smug;

Your Summer self unroll

And show you’ve got some nature left

That sprouts an airy wing;

The man of humus is bereft

Who can’t respond to Spring.

Come out of your Winter shell, old worm

Of wrapped-up gossamer,

If you would burst your scaly derm

And let the spirit stir;

For after all, for better things

A man created is

Than lying with imprisoned wings

A half-dead chrysalis.

WHEN I SURVEY

’Tis midnight and I am in the country!

The world is still and all the lights are out

Save for the ones which stud the firmament

With diamond clusters everywhere about.

Like royal David pondering the Heaven

I stand uncovered, torn and battle-spent

And from my flocking meditations driven

By spectral bears and lions; but not as he

Victorious, for the raveners I smote

Were modern pride and doubt which stalked my faith

For its ewe-lamb of trust and by the throat

Dragged it away from me to bleating death.