Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BANKING UP VERMONT HOUSES, by DANIEL LEAVENS CADY


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BANKING UP VERMONT HOUSES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A house without a suller wall
Last Line: They know you've finished banking up.
Subject(s): Farm Life; Labor & Laborers; Vermont; Agriculture; Farmers; Work; Workers


A HOUSE without a suller wall
Is jest no kind of house at all;
A mud, or Calafornie, sill
Would be taboo in Underhill;
They always excavate the spot
Beneath a building in Charlotte;
You find, jest as you s'pose you would,
Vermont foundations pretty good—
But here's the gall inside the cup,
They every one need banking up.

No underpinning ever cost
Enough to wholly block the frost;
Unless you pack it 'round with leaves
The cistern pump will have the heaves;
The spuds and turnips turn to stone,
The headcheese harden into bone;
Your wife's preserves all go to waste,
Your cider lose that claret taste—
You'll lack the means to dine or sup
Unless you bank your buildings up.

It's quite a little labor—quite,
To bank a house and do it right;
You've lost the boards you used before
And have to go and hunt for more;
I've seen old hencoops, sheepracks, doors,
Yes Sir; and parts of stable floors,
The pen that held the fatted calf,
All utilized in this behalf—
I'll bet 'twould bother Bertha Krupp
To bank the whole of Hinesburg up.

It gets so late before you start
The ground is like a miser's heart;
The stakes you drive with stinging whacks
Do nothing much, but dent the axe;
At last your temper gets so tense
You yank the pickets off the fence;
Before the leaves your house encase,
There's nothing loose around the place—
It ain't like touring in a "Hup,"
This banking of a building up.

The "boxing" done, the boys begin
To rake the leaves and pile 'em in;
The youngster cocks 'em up like hay,
While Johnny baskets 'em away;
But, My! he treads 'em in so stout
He pokes the basket bottoms out,
And then, By George! the first you know
It starts to rain and sleet and snow—
There's bitter, sure, inside the cup
Of him who banks a building up.

Right here you have to make a pause
Of several days until it thaws,
And then the sodden mess demands
New leaves and labor at your hands;
At last your work with slabs you crown,
And rob a wall to hold 'em down:
You then go in and heave a sigh,
And fix the fire and burn a pie—
The cat walks 'round beside the pup,
They know you've finished banking up.





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