A Child of the People :: :: University of Virginia Library

One day last summer,—in a burning noon
When not an aspen stirred,
And life lay languid in a sultry swoon,
Nor twittered any bird,
But slept amid the cool green of the trees
Until an opening eye
Might see leaves nodding in an evening breeze
And day begin to die,—
My love and I a-wandering, came for shade
Into an orchard old,
Where on the long grass bolder sunbeams played
And flecked the green with gold.
And crumbling grim-grey walls frowned chastely chill
Around that dim retreat;
There came no stir of life to break the still,
No tread of noisy feet,
But fruitful, deep-roofed apple-trees shut in
The lilies' tender snows;—
It was the time when early fruits begin
To redden into rose;—

And as we lingered there, love-linked, she said,
“You are a poet, you!
Here as we sit, Love's wings above us spread,
Give me my promised due,—
Some quaint word-sculptures, rich with leaf and flower,
Rose-buds and murmuring bees;
And call them, mindful of this happy hour,
‘Under the Apple-trees!’”

So then I chose stray thoughts from out the throng
Snared in the hands of Time,
And moulded them ephemeral forms of song,
And tinsel crowns of rhyme.
Old songs, new name: that scarce-flown summer-tide,
Which seems such years ago,
Buried the name she gave them. Since she died
I have not called them so.

Then my love rose, and, blindfold, plucked a spray
Six leaves were clinging to.
She clapped her hands; “Six songs you sing to-day;
But hear my fancy through,—
These shall be sibyl's leaves, wherewith I wait
For you with songs to buy:—

The first shall be for Fame, the second, Fate;
The third for Courtesy;
Nor shrink from Failure that shall fairer be;
This,—hark, “the Past,” it saith;—
O sweet sad Past, dear leaf of Memory,—
What should come next but Death!

“These be your songs,—six leaflets on one stem,
And Love the stalk thereof;
Yours shall be Fame, Fate, Memory, all of them,
Save Death and half of Love!”