Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, QUAKERDOM - THE FORMAL CALL, by CHARLES GRAHAM HALPINE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

QUAKERDOM - THE FORMAL CALL, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Through her forced, abnormal quiet
Last Line: And the stately mother found us prim enough to suit her eye.
Alternate Author Name(s): O'reilly, Miles
Subject(s): Friends, Religious Society Of; Love; Quakers


THROUGH her forced, abnormal quiet
Flashed the soul of frolic riot,
And a most malicious laughter lighted up her downcast eyes;
All in vain I tried each topic,
Ranged from polar climes to tropic,—
Every commonplace I started met with yes-or-no replies.

For her mother—stiff and stately,
As if starched and ironed lately—
Sat erect, with rigid elbows bedded thus in curving palms;
There she sat on guard before us,
And in words precise, decorous,
And most calm, reviewed the weather, and recited several psalms.

How without abruptly ending
This my visit, and offending
Wealthy neighbors, was the problem which employed my mental care;
When the butler, bowing lowly,
Uttered clearly, stiffly, slowly,
"Madam, please, the gardener wants you,"—
Heaven, I thought, has heard my prayer.

"Pardon me!" she grandly uttered;
Bowing low, I gladly muttered,
"Surely, madam!" and, relieved, I turned to scan the daughter's face:
Ha! what pent-up mirth outflashes
From beneath those penciled lashes!
How the drill of Quaker custom yields to Nature's brilliant grace!

Brightly springs the prisoned fountain
From the side of Delphi's mountain,
When the stone that weighed upon its buoyant life is thrust aside;
So the long-enforced stagnation
Of the maiden's conversation
Now imparted fivefold brilliance to its evervarying tide.

Widely ranging, quickly changing,
Witty, winning, from beginning
Unto end I listened, merely flinging in a casual word;
Eloquent, and yet how simple!
Hand and eye, and eddying dimple,
Tongue and lip together made a music seen as well as heard.

When the noonday woods are ringing,
All the birds of summer singing,
Suddenly there falls a silence, and we know a serpent nigh:
So upon the door a rattle
Stopped our animated tattle,
And the stately mother found us prim enough to suit her eye.





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