AN APPLE GATHERING

AN APPLE GATHERING

I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple-tree

     And wore them all that evening in my hair:

Then in due season when I went to see

     I found no apples there.

With dangling basket all along the grass

     As I had come I went the selfsame track:

My neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass

     So empty-handed back.

Lilian and Lilias smiled in trudging by,

     Their heaped-up basket teazed me like a jeer;

Sweet-voiced they sang beneath the sunset sky,

     Their mother’s home was near.

Plump Gertrude passed me with her basket full,

     A stronger hand than hers helped it along;

A voice talked with her through the shadows cool

     More sweet to me than song.

Ah Willie, Willie, was my love less worth

     Than apples with their green leaves piled above?

I counted rosiest apples on the earth

     Of far less worth than love.

So once it was with me you stooped to talk

     Laughing and listening in this very lane;

To think that by this way we used to walk

     We shall not walk again!

I let my neighbours pass me, ones and twos

     And groups; the latest said the night grew chill,

And hastened: but I loitered, while the dews

     Fell fast I loitered still.