out to welcome
thee!

To an Old Teapot

Now from the dust of half-forgotten
things,
You rise to haunt me at the year's Spring-
cleaning,
And bring to memory dim imaginings
Of mystic meaning.

No old-time potter handled you, I ween,
Nor yet were you of gold or silver molten;
No Derby stamp, nor Worcester, can be
seen,
Nor Royal Doulton.

You never stood to grace the princely
board
Of monarchs in some Oriental palace.
Your lid is chipped, your chubby side is
scored
As if in malice.

I hesitate to say it, but your spout
Is with unhandsome rivets held together--
Mute witnesses of treatment meted out
In regions nether.

O patient sufferer of many bumps!
I ask it gently--shall the dustbin hold
you?
And will the dust-heap, with its cabbage
stumps,
At last enfold you?

It ought. And yet with gentle hands I
place
You with my priceless Delft and Dresden
china,
For sake of one who loved your homely
face
In days diviner.

To a Rebellious
Daughter

You call authority "a grievous thing."
With careless hands you snap the
leading string,
And, for a frolic (so it seems to you),
Put off the old love, and put on the new.

For "What does Mother know of love?"
you say.
"Did her soul ever thrill?
Did little tendernesses ever creep
Into her dreams, and over-ride her will?
Did her eyes shine, or her heart ever leap
As my heart leaps to-day?
I, who am young; who long to try my
wings!

How should she understand,
She, with her calm cool hand?
She never felt such yearnings? And,
beside,
It's clear I can't be tied
For ever to my mother's apron strings."

There are Infinities of Knowledge, dear.
And there are mysteries, not yet made
clear
To you, the Uninitiate. . . . Life's book
Is open, yes; but you may only look
At its first section. Youth
Is part, not all, the truth.
It is impossible that you should see
The end from the beginning perfectly.

You answer: "Even so.
But how can Mother know,
Who meditates upon the price of bacon?
On 'liberties' the charwoman has taken,