THE LITTLE TEA BOOK 



Here are the lines : 



" Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast ; 

 Let fall the curtains ; wheel the sofa round ; 

 And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn 

 Throws up a steamly column, and the cups 

 That cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each, 

 To let us welcome peaceful evening in." 



Isn't that a picture ? Not one 

 superfluous word in it ! Who knows 

 its author, or when it was written, 

 or can quote the line before or after 



"the cups 

 That cheer, but not inebriate " ? 



or in what poem the lines run down 

 the ages ? I tell you ? Not I. I 

 don't believe in encouraging laziness. 

 If I tell you, you will let it slip from 

 your memory, like a panic-stricken 

 eel through the fingers of a panic- 

 stricken schoolboy ; but if you hunt 

 it up, it will be riveted to your mem- 

 ory, like a bullet, and one never for- 



35 



