Poems (Howard)/The Smell of Grapes

by Hattie Howard

The Smell of Grapes.

Oh! fine as musk, invisible,
 Impalpable—as odors are—
Luxurious and wonderful
 As essence from those isles afar
Where sweet amomum, cinnamon,
 And all delicious spices grow,
Is their perfume, for dew and sun
 And rain combine to make it so.

And while beneath an autumn sky
 The atmosphere is redolent,
Within my hammock long I lie,
 And breathe the grapes' unrivaled scent;
Then close my eyes and dream I see,
 Beyond Atlantic's broad expanse,
The vineyard slopes of Italy,
 Or vintages of happy France.

Judea's hills before me rise,
 That "milk-and-honey" land renowned
In Bible story, where the spies
 The famous "grapes of Eshcol" found.
Upon the air of Palestine
 What must have been the burden great
Of fragrance, equaling the mean
 Of their recorded size and weight!

I live a charming period o'er
 Of reveling in sunny Spain,
And view, as from Gibraltar's shore,
 Her fields of waving golden grain;
Her castles, villas, fair coquettes,
 Her honest bourgeois, peasantry,
And oh! the sight one ne'er forgets—
 Her wine-producing husbandry.

But, looking from my casement near,
 At ten o'clock, down in the shade,
Instead of some gay cavalier
 To charm me with a serenade,
What are those figures, one by one,
 With stealthy steps and ragged shapes?
Why, by "the smell" I might have known
 They are the boys who steal my grapes!