Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, CLEANING OUT THE SULLER IN VERMONT, by DANIEL LEAVENS CADY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

CLEANING OUT THE SULLER IN VERMONT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The time to clean the suller out
Last Line: "it's pretty clean down suller."
Subject(s): Cattle; Fields; Spring; Vermont; Pastures; Meadows; Leas


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."





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