| |
| 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 | 5 |
| The topmost harebells sway | |
| (Campanula rotundi- | |
| folia: cf. Gray)? | |
| |
| On the pastures high and level, | 10 |
| 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, | 15 |
| 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. | 20 |
| 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,” | 25 |
| Quoth I, “Ma belle cousine, | |
| What have you in your basket?” | |
| (Those baskets white and green | |
| The brave Passamaquoddies | |
| Weave out of scented grass, | 30 |
| And sell to tourist bodies | |
| Who through Mt. Desert pass.) | |
| |
| You answered, slightly frowning, | |
| “Put down your stupid book— | |
| That everlasting Browning!— | 35 |
| 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.” | 40 |
| |
| 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, | 45 |
| The white gulls screamed and flew, | |
| The merry sheep-bells tinkled, | |
| The merry breezes blew. | |
| |
| The bayberry aromatic, | |
| The papery immortelles | 50 |
| (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 | 55 |
| That blue September day. | |
| |
