The Apple-Tree
Graceful and lithe and tall,
It stands by the garden wall,
In the flush of its pink-white bloom
Elate with its own perfume.
Tossing its young bright head
In the first glad joy of May,
While its singing leaves sing back
To the bird on the dancing spray.
“I’m alive! I’m abloom!” it cries
To the winds and the laughing skies.
Ho! for the gay young apple-tree
That stands by the garden wall!
Sturdy and broad and tall,
Over the garden wall
It spreads its branches wide—
A bower on either side.
For the bending boughs hang low;
And with shouts and gay turmoil
The children gather like bees
To garner the golden spoil;
While the smiling mother sings,
“Rejoice for the gift it brings!
Ho! for the laden apple-tree
That stands by our garden wall!”
The strong swift years fly past,
Each swifter than the last;
And the tree by the garden wall
Sees joy and grief befall.
Still from the spreading boughs
Some golden apples swing;
But the children come no more
For the autumn harvesting.
The tangled grass lies deep
Where the long path used to creep;
Yet ho! for the brave old apple-tree
That leans o’er the crumbling wall!
Now generations pass,
Like shadows on the grass.
What is there that remains
For all their toil and pains?
A little hollow place
Where once a hearthstone lay;
An empty, silent space
Whence life hath gone away;
Tall brambles where the lilacs grew,
Some fennel, and a clump of rue,
And this one gnarled old apple-tree
Where once was the garden wall!