I
sit with pipe and uncut book
Before the glowing fire;
I
cannot read, and so I puff,
And rings mound high and higher.
I
see within them old time scenes,
A mother singing gay;
A
turkey, stuffed, upon the shelf
Before Thanksgiving day.
And
I behold a peerless face,
A maid of seven years;
Who
used to walk with me to school,
Who shared my smiles and tears.
And
pictures crowd my vision fast,
Of home, and far away;
Of
her – of lonely hotel fares
On this Thanksgiving day.
I
will not dine, but dream of her,
Of things that ought to be;
And
try to picture through the smoke
Her deep in cookery.
And
here I swear, by all that’s great,
Life shall not course this way;
I’ll
carve a turkey stuffed by her
On next Thanksgiving day!
July
31, 1900
'uncut book' - The pages are "connected" in older
books and periodicals because larger sheets were folded before binding
(generally into 8 parts) to make a book of the size we're used to. That's
why these are called "octavo" editions. So-called
"quarto" editions are larger and the pages were only folded into four
quarters before binding.
When purchasing a new book in the 19th century
and before, you would indeed need a book knife (or any sharp-edged object) to
"cut" the pages to read the "uncut" book. You will
still find references to pages being uncut in antiquarian book catalogs.
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