Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BIFTEK AUX CHAMPIGNONS, by HENRY AUGUSTIN BEERS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BIFTEK AUX CHAMPIGNONS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Mimi, do you remember
Last Line: That blue september day.
Subject(s): Fundy, Bay Of; New Brunswick, Canada


MIMI, do you remember --
Don't get behind your fan --
That morning in September
On the cliffs of Grand Manan,
Where to the shock of Fundy
The topmost harebells sway
(Campanula rotundifolia: cf. Gray)?

On the pastures high and level,
That overlook the sea,
Where I wondered what the devil
Those little things could be
That Mimi stooped to gather,
As she strolled across the down,
And held her dress skirt rather --
Oh, now, you need n't frown.

For you know the dew was heavy,
And your boots, I know, were thin;
So a little extra brevity in skirts was, sure, no sin.
Besides, who minds a cousin?
First, second, even third, --
I've kissed 'em by the dozen,
And they never once demurred.

"If one's allowed to ask it,"
Quoth I, "Ma belle cousine,
What have you in your basket?"
(Those baskets white and green
The brave Passamaquoddies
Weave out of scented grass,
And sell to tourist bodies
Who through Mt. Desert pass.)

You answered, slightly frowning,
"Put down your stupid book --
That everlasting Browning! --
And come and help me look.
Mushroom you spik him English,
I call him champignon:
I'll teach you to distinguish
The right kind from the wrong."

There was no fog on Fundy
That blue September day;
The west wind, for that one day,
Had swept it all away.
The lighthouse glasses twinkled,
The white gulls screamed and flew,
The merry sheep-bells tinkled,
The merry breezes blew.

The bayberry aromatic,
The papery immortelles
(That give our grandma's attic
That sentimental smell,
Tied up in little brush-brooms)
Were sweet as new-mown hay,
While we went hunting mushrooms
That blue September day.





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