The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1882-11-11
HELLEBORE.
" Drink Hellebore. .''-Aristophanea.

Once in this ripe month September,
Day or year can't remember.
But of these none need be curious
While cut weeds In my garden,
Hot and sworn no weed to pardon.
Hoe and heart gainst all to harden
However fair form one wore,
Every one should, I had sworn it,
However fair the bloom it bore,
Bow the head my hoe before.
Suddenly in the midst of chopping,
Many a rank weed madly Topping,
/ espied the broad leaves Topping
Right my raging hoe before
Of a weed that seemed heseechln
In an attitude bewitchlng
Me to spare it from wide-reacking
Kuin, ruin without shore.
Gave it on the hoes edge lying
From the doom of Live no more
60, shed blooms on Eades' foor!"
So limp hung its broad leaves dropping
So meek seemed its branches stopping
With their weight of yellow blossoms
That although my blood was boiling.
And my soul was hot with tolllng,
And sweat my clean shirt was so1llng,
My heart melted to the core,
And l, like the great Teoumseh,
Stayed my appraised hoe before
Weed which erst had seemed SO poor.
And the despised weed addressing,
Half reproackful, half caressing;
Art thou said |, = that same bearsfoot
L
Never felt remorse at looping
Wherever have met thee cropping,
In the garden or at my door
Or hast thou some name poetic
Some name from classic shore!
Opoth. the weed-H I'm Hellebore''
At this name 50 strange, amazing,
the hoe dropped and stood gazing
With aesthetic awe and wonder
At this weed, Il name had lifted
From vulgar1ty, and shifted
Into plant divinely gifted.
And said: Here at my door
Did hack and lop this classic,
Years, when in books did pore
Ger the name of Hellebore."
Till, with Hellenistic soaring,
lost wholly this ife's mooring,
And went whirling in an eddy
Round and round, with the same motion,
On the unfrnitful, shoreless ocean
OF the Past, without a notion
or the Present, or its lore.
Lost, in fact, In life my reckoning,
To which naught can me restore
Unless thou canst, Hellebore.
And of this weed asked I, kneeling,
Ali my craze to it revealing:
Is there IN thy leaves or blossoms
Any remedy for Madness
Such as mine is-full Of sadness
Blank and empty of all gladness?
Is there, of this witching lore,
Virtue IN thy root to purge me,
And to health OF mind restore!
QuCth this coarse weed: You're bore
Worthless weed said uprising.
IN find out by analysing
With this hoe your deepest taproGt
Whether Heilas hither sent you,
Or from Eades Pluto lent you,
Oryou took up peradventure,
Classic name upon our shore,
Like bogus, pauper italian
Court, adrlft upon our shore,
and are no true Heiiehore.'
Then. like Ajax Te'ainonius,
High swung my hoe, felonious,
And with all my might smote downward;
But, from far Olympus reaching
Paltas' self, Athena, stretching
Forth her hand, and my hoe catching
Broke the helve sheer off before
The confounded, faithless iron
Grazed the mark / meant it for
Taproot Of the Eeliebore.
And the bearsfoot, thence pfesu,ning,
Still Is blaeming, still IS blooming
On q plot within my garden,
Net far off my chamber door.
And It's blooms have all The seeming
OF a sunf1oWer that is dreaming
OF an aesthetic, DER it beaming,
With gaze would pierce its core,
To find respite and nepenthe
For disease this weed can cure
Which the Greeks call Hellebore.
-Murksuilte Bulletin.