Poems (Scudder)/The Vinaigrette

by Antoinette Quinby Scudder

THE VINAIGRETTE

When I was a child
I sometimes used to steal
Within the parlor, tiptoe light across
The darkly shining floor
To where behind the wide brocaded couch
Stood a small cabinet.
I loved to rub my finger on the smooth
Cold glass of the doors, and peer
At all the pretty things upon the shelves.

Three balls of solid crystal grasped
Between the curving claws
Of an ivory dragon, held the light
Unchanging, purple, green and rose.

Then, on its teakwood stand
A bowl of Japanese
Enamel of most dainty blue. Beneath
A foaming cascade overhung
By trailing willows golden fishes leapt—
Their burnished scales
Gleamed like the smoky orange flame
In a fire-opal's heart.

On either side
Of such a wee chess-board inlaid
With ebony and pearl,
Two cupids knelt in fierce dispute;
Each carved from alabaster. This I thought
Most beautiful of all.

I must speak very low—
There lay within its narrow case
A jewelled vinaigrette.
It looked so small and quaint and stiff,
With its little golden head
It made me think of a dead child
Lying straight and still
Within a coffin satin-lined.

I've heard that it belonged
To a great-great-aunt of mine,
Once famous for her beauty, but she died
Young of a broken heart—
Because she might not wed the man she loved.

—One day, I even dared
To turn the golden key and thrust
A bold, impious hand
Within the cabinet and take
The vinaigrette from out its case.
I pulled the tiny stopper—lo,
Such a faint, keen perfume
Greeted my nostrils. 'Twas as sweet
As when the brier-roses lift
Their shallow chalices
Of silver, of pale coral to the rain.
Just a torn, trembling film of fragrance blown
On soft winds of the past.
Tell me—you, who believe in ghosts,
Was not this a strange sort of a ghost,
A sweet little ghost indeed?