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From “Bitter Sweet”
SIXTEEN barrels of cider | |
| Ripening all in a row! | |
| Open the vent-channels wider! | |
| See the froth, drifted like snow, | |
| Blown by the tempest below! | 5 |
| Those delectable juices | |
| Flowed through the sinuous sluices | |
| Of sweet springs under the orchard; | |
| Climbed into fountains that chained them; | |
| Dripped into cups that retained them, | 10 |
| And swelled till they dropped, and we gained them. | |
| Then they were gathered and tortured | |
| By passage from hopper to vat, | |
| And fell—every apple crushed flat. | |
| Ah! how the bees gathered round them, | 15 |
| And how delicious they found them! | |
| Oat-straw as fragrant as clover, | |
| Was platted, and smoothly turned over, | |
| Weaving a neatly ribbed basket; | |
| And, as they built up the casket, | 20 |
| In went the pulp by the scoop-full, | |
| Till the juice flowed by the stoup-full,— | |
| Filling the half of a puncheon | |
| While the men swallowed their luncheon. | |
| Pure grew the stream with the stress | 25 |
| Of the lever and screw, | |
| Till the last drops from the press | |
| Were as bright as the dew. | |
| There were these juices spilled; | |
| There were these barrels filled; | 30 |
| Sixteen barrels of cider— | |
| Ripening all in a row! | |
| Open the vent-channels wider! | |
| See the froth, drifted like snow, | |
| Blown by the tempest below! | 35 |
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