Poetry Archives

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-decollete)—
“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.