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 neighbors mocked me while they saw me pass / So empty-handed back.

Lilian and Lilias smiled in trudging by, / Their heaped-up basket teased 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 neighbors 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.