Almond-blossoms, now adance
In the smile of Southern France,
Leave your sport with sun and breeze,
Think of duty, not of ease;
Fashion, ’neath their jerkins brown,
Kernels white as thistle-down,
Tiny cheeses made with cream
From the Galaxy’s mid-stream,
Blanched in light of honeymoons,—­
Eleanor makes macaroons!

Now for sugar,—­nay, our plan
Tolerates no work of man. 
Hurry, then, ye golden bees;
Fetch your clearest honey, please,
Garnered on a Yorkshire moor,
While the last larks sing and soar,
From the heather-blossoms sweet
Where sea-breeze and sunshine meet,
And the Augusts mask as Junes,—­
Eleanor makes macaroons!

Next the pestle and mortar find. 
Pure rock-crystal,—­these to grind
Into paste more smooth than silk,
Whiter than the milkweed’s milk: 
Spread it on a rose-leaf, thus,
Cate to please Theocritus;
Then the fire with spices swell,
While, for her completer spell,
Mystic canticles she croons,—­
Eleanor makes macaroons!

Perfect! and all this to waste
On a graybeard’s palsied taste! 
Poets so their verses write,
Heap them full of life and light,
And then fling them to the rude
Mumbling of the multitude. 
Not so dire her fate as theirs,
Since her friend this gift declares
Choicest of his birthday boons,—­
Eleanor’s dear macaroons!

February 22, 1884.

TELEPATHY

‘And how could you dream of meeting?’
  Nay, how can you ask me, sweet? 
All day my pulse had been beating
  The tune of your coming feet.

And as nearer and ever nearer
  I felt the throb of your tread,
To be in the world grew clearer,
  And my blood ran rosier red.

Love called, and I could not linger,
  But sought the forbidden tryst,
As music follows the finger
  Of the dreaming lutanist

And though you had said it and said it,
  ‘We must not be happy to-day,’
Was I not wiser to credit
  The fire in my feet than your Nay?

SCHERZO

When the down is on the chin
And the gold-gleam in the hair,
When the birds their sweethearts win
And champagne is in the air,
Love is here, and Love is there,
Love is welcome everywhere.

Summer’s cheek too soon turns thin,
Days grow briefer, sunshine rare;
Autumn from his cannekin
Blows the froth to chase Despair: 
Love is met with frosty stare,
Cannot house ’neath branches bare.

When new life is in the leaf
And new red is in the rose,
Though Love’s Maytlme be as brief
As a dragon-fly’s repose,
Never moments come like those,
Be they Heaven or Hell:  who knows?

All too soon comes Winter’s grief,
Spendthrift Love’s false friends turn foes;
Softly comes Old Age, the thief,
Steals the rapture, leaves the throes: 
Love his mantle round him throws,—­
‘Time to say Good-by; it snows.’