I think of the garden after the rain;
And hope to my heart comes singing,
"At morn the cherry-blooms will be white,
And the Easter bells be ringing!"
The fasts are done; the Aves said;
The moon has filled her horn
And in the solemn night I watch
Before the Easter morn.
So pure, so still the starry heaven,
So hushed the brooding air,
I could hear the sweep of an angel's wings
If one should earthward fare.
Spring bursts to-day,
For Christ is risen and all the earth's at play.
God expects from men something more than at such times, and that it were much to be wished for the credit of their religion as well as the satisfaction of their conscience that their Easter devotions would in some measure come up to their Easter dress.
Christ is our Passover!
And we will keep the feast
With the new leaven,
The bread of heaven:
All welcome, even the least!
"Christ the Lord is risen to-day,"
Sons of men and angels say.
Raise your joys and triumphs high;
Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply.
Jesus Christ is risen to-day,
Our triumphant holy day;
Who did once upon the cross
Suffer to redeem our loss.
Hallelujah!
EATING
(See also Appetite, Cookery, Hunger)
The poor man will praise it so hath he good cause,
That all the year eats neither partridge nor
quail,
But sets up his rest and makes up his feast,
With a crust of brown bread and a pot of good
ale.
When the Sultan Shah-Zaman
Goes to the city Ispahan,
Even before he gets so far
As the place where the clustered palm-trees are,
At the last of the thirty palace-gates,
The pet of the harem, Rose-in-Bloom,
Orders a feast in his favorite room—
Glittering square of colored ice,
Sweetened with syrup, tinctured with spice,
Creams, and cordials, and sugared dates,
Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces,
Limes and citrons and apricots,
And wines that are known to Eastern princes.
Acorns were good till bread was found.
Bacon—Colours of Good and Evil. 6. Quoted from Juvenal—Satires. XIV, 181.
Some men are born to feast, and not to fight;
Whose sluggish minds, e'en in fair honor's field,
Still on their dinner turn—
Let such pot-boiling varlets stay at home,
And wield a flesh-hook rather than a sword.
Joanna Bauxie—Basil. Act I. Sc. 1.
'Tis not her coldness, father,
That chills my labouring breast;
It's that confounded cucumber
I've ate and can't digest.
R. H. Barham—The Confession.
I sing the sweets I know, the charms I feel,
My morning incense, and my evening meal,
The sweets of Hasty-Pudding.
Joel Barlow—The Hasty Pudding. Canto I.
Ratons and myse and soche smale dere
That was his mete that vii. yere.
Sir Bevis of Hamptoun.
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{{Hoyt quote
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| text = <poem>Un dmer rechauffe ne valut jamais rien.
A warmed-up dinner was never worth much.
Bohjbau—Lutrin. I. 104.
First come, first served.
Henry Brtnklow—Complaint of Roderyck
Mors. Also in Bartholomew's Fair. Act III. 5. (1614)
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{{Hoyt quote
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| text = <poem>Man is a carnivorous production,
And must have meals, at least one meal a day;
He cannot live, like woodcocks, upon suction,
But, like the shark and tiger, must have prey;
Although his anatomical construction
Bears vegetables, in a grumbling way,
Your laboring people think beyond all question,
Beef, veal, and mutton better for digestion.
That famish'd people must be slowly nurst,
And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst.
All human history attests
That happiness for man,—the hungry sinner!—
Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto XIII. St. 99.
