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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
WINTER CHURNING IN VERMONT, by DANIEL LEAVENS CADY Poet's Biography First Line: It's joy to churn on juney morns Last Line: "a piece of custard pie." Subject(s): December; Vermont; Winter | |||
IT'S joy to churn on Juney morns When happy insects hum; It's joy to churn when things go right, Although you're deef and dumb; It's joy to churn when nineteen turns Will make the butter come. Your wife, she ups and pours the cream Inside the Filey churn, And helps it with her butter-spat, For few have cream to burn, And then she claps the cover on And calls to you to turn. You pull along the broken chair, So calm and self-possessed, You never even stop to shed Your cap or coat or vest; You know it's only nineteen turns, Or twenty at the best. But when against the old red ell December "Northers" beat, And you're obliged to set the cream Beside the stove to heat Say; that's the time you wish you lived A-back on Summer street. For eighteen hours that cream has stood Beside the oven door; The fire you've kept would furnish steam To heat a Rutland store; You're jest as 'fraid of that there cream As tigers was of Noah. At last you start the game and churn Right through from ten to six, And then you guess the room's too cool, Or something's out of fix, And so inside the stove you slam Another round of sticks. You rest an hour, then crank ahead Till midnight cuts your trail, When mother comes and puts that cream A-back inside the pail: "In churning's lexicon," says she, "There's no sech word as fail." Next day two stiddy morning hours You turn and turn and turn, And then you grab the kettle up, And while your eyeballs burn, Six boiling water quarts you pour Inside that stubborn churn. Resplendent thoughtin forty winks Of anybody's eye, That butter comes, your mind is saved, And mother whispers, "Si, What will you have?" and you respond, "A piece of custard pie." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LOOKING EAST IN THE WINTER by JOHN HOLLANDER WINTER DISTANCES by FANNY HOWE WINTER FORECAST by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN AT WINTER'S EDGE by JUDY JORDAN CHAMBER MUSIC: 34 by JAMES JOYCE A VERMONT 'DONATION' by DANIEL LEAVENS CADY |
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