University of Virginia Library

Hear now, my daughter, what I say;
I came into that house one day,
The twisting apple-trees were bloom,
I sat a long time in that room;
The house rose just above the stream
Upon the bottom of a seam
Of hill that rises high beyond,
All bare except the little bond
Of apple-yard enclosed behind
The house, and all so steep inclined,
The highest apple-tree appeared
One level with the gable reared;
And need had I to think, I ween,
The twinkling flax was living green.
With fleecy moss and misletoe
Those trees will now be gray, I know;
But then they had a wondrous glow,
Their roots were in the earth below,
Their blossom in the heaven above.
The blue wind rose and gently clove
The pearl-green leafage from the glume,
And bore it to the brook to bloom;
And need had I to think, I ween,
About your gold hair's glorious sheen,
Yet not so fair as mine had been;
And your eye living in the noon
Of life, yet singing no such tune
Of life, I thought, as mine did once;
Of thee, sweet virgin, for the nonce
Unbroken in thy heart, my maid,
My virgin, from my bowels flayed.
Of thy sweet peace as yet unpained,
Of thy sweet mercy yet unstained,
Of thy sweet angel yet unfrayed,
Of thy sweet service, to be paid,
Of thy sweet humour, not yet dim,
Of thy sweet blessings made for him;
'Twere need, I ween, to think of these
Beneath the apple-trees.

His spirit there before me stood,
It dropped out of the apple wood,
It went before me where I sat,
Through the house and past the cat,
It passed the brook, it passed the road,
But led me towards our old abode;
And at the turnstile turned, and saw
Me following, then took its law
Of vanishing from mortal sight;
I kept that way with steady might,
And came upon you both, and found
What I had wished—his arms around
Your golden head, while muttering burned
His lips upon your lips upturned.
He's dead, and I am forty year;
You are a mother now, my dear.