We plant, upon the sunny lea, What plant we in this apple-tree? Sweets for a hundred flowery springs To load the May-wind's restless wings, When, from the orchard-row, he pours Its fragrance through our open doors; A world of blossoms for the bee, Flowers for the sick girl's silent room, For the glad infant sprigs of bloom, We plant with the apple-tree. What plant we in this apple-tree? Fruits that shall swell in sunny June, And redden in the August noon, And drop, when gentle airs come by, That fan the blue September sky, 20 30 While children come, with cries of glee, And seek them where the fragrant grass Betrays their bed to those who pass, At the foot of the apple-tree. And when, above this apple-tree, The winter stars are quivering bright, And winds go howling through the night, Girls, whose young eyes o'erflow with mirth, Shall peel its fruit by cottage-hearth, And guests in prouder homes shall see, Heaped with the grape of Cintra's vine And golden orange of the line, The fruit of the apple-tree. 91 Fling wide the grain for those who throw By whom the busy thread In strife with weariness and sleep, Large part be theirs in what the year VI 100 160 And leave it to the kindly care 170 Like currents journeying through the windless deep. Seek'st thou, in living lays, To limn the beauty of the earth and sky? Before thine inner gaze Let all that beauty in clear vision lie; 40 Look on it with exceeding love, and write The words inspired by wonder and delight. Of tempests wouldst thou sing, Or tell of battles-make thyself a part Of the great tumult; cling To the tossed wreck with terror in thy heart; Scale, with the assaulting host, the rampart's height, And strike and struggle in the thickest fight. Oh, time for which we yearn; Oh, sabbath of the nations long foretold! Season of peace, return, Like a late summer when the year grows old, When the sweet sunny days Steeped mead and mountain-side in golden haze. 1 This poem was written for the day of the funeral procession of Lincoln in New York City. |