THE time to clean the suller out Is May or June, or later— July or August—anytime It pleases "Mrs. Slater;" You'd better do it when her soul Reflects a rosy color, For it's a family affair, This cleaning out the suller. It ain't so much the weary work As 'tis the strain and tension; Each time you drop a jelly jar You feel an apprehension; Each time the piccalilli spills You turn a different color— Oh! it's too much for flesh and blood, Almost, to clean a suller. You're glad the man that built the house Failed up without a dollar; He run the suller dreen up-hill Instead of towards the holler; Of all the dull-head sons of men No head was ever duller— You've got to bail and mop as well As sweep and dust your suller. Your broom against the walls and joice Rips out the frost-killed mortar; The dry-rot dust comes down so fast Your breath gets short and shorter; It loads your eyelids till you look As sad as Maudie Muller— Alas! that error-hounded man Should have to clean a suller. Oh! how you hate to touch that bin Of withered old potaters; Your views on sprouting ain't the same, At all, as "Mrs. Slater's;" You'd like to have it understood You're not a murphy huller; She thinks you'd better sprout them spuds, Before you leave the suller. There's beet and turnip dirt enough To fill a bushel basket; And everywhere a barrel stood You find a dusty gasket; The brine drops on the corn beef tub Are all you see of color— It's sure an apoplectic job A-cleaning out the suller. But when you've done and finished up— The crocks and firkins mated, The benches washed, the winders sloshed, The rat trap set and baited, It smells so sweet you go up stairs And eat a fresh-fried cruller, And say, "Now, mother, let's be friends, It's pretty clean down suller." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONG, FR. ERNEST MALTRAVERS by EDWARD GEORGE EARLE LYTTON BULWER-LYTTON MERSA by KEITH CASTELLAINE DOUGLAS ON EXPLORATION by JAMES GALVIN JONAH'S SONG, FR. MOBY DICK by HERMAN MELVILLE ROBINSON CRUSOE by MOTHER GOOSE |