Muse and Mint

Chapter 35: THE AFTERMATH

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About This Book

A varied collection of short lyrical poems that observes nature and rural life, using seasonal imagery—sap, snow, rivers, cherries—and simple domestic scenes to reflect on change, beauty, and small joys. Sections shift between fireside recollections, sentimental and philosophical meditations, homiletic and religious pieces, and light humor, blending devotional songlike verses with moral aphorisms and affectionate memory. The voice moves between wistful and buoyant moods, finding consolation and ethical insight in commonplace experiences, while concise stanzas and vivid images emphasize mood and moral reflection rather than a continuous narrative.

THE AFTERMATH

Lovers making foolish vows,

Thinking love is deathless

When ’tis fiercest to espouse

What it sings so breathless;

Now caressing, now confessing

In romantic stanza—

Such is passion and its fashion

Of extravaganza.

But the love that’s worth a throne

Is the kind that later

More than sentiment alone

Proves and heavens greater

Than a frenzy of the fancy

Or a creed of nature,

Or the praises in fine phrases

Of a charming creature.

Oh, the happy aftermath

When the mating’s over

And ordeals of life and death

Teach the whilom lover

That the woman, though for human

Charms he did enshrine her,

Is the essence of a presence

Sweeter and diviner!