Page:Oregon, her history, her great men, her literature.djvu/350

Rh And its ceaseless hum and patter

Is the many million clatter

Of a vast surrounding main,—

Beating, beating, nor retreating

Till its hoof prints weld the chain

or a people—fleeting, fleeting

Into ocean's finny main.

When the sky is a dream of violet

And the days are rich with gold,

And the satin robe of the earth is set

With the jewels wrought of old;

When the woodlands wave in choral seas

And the purple mountains loom.

It is heaven to eome with birds and bees

To the feast of apple bloom.

For the cabled roof of the home arose

O'er the sheen of the orchard snow.

And is still my shrine when storms repose

And the gnarly branches blow;

While the music of childhood's singing heart,

That was lost in the backward gloom,

May be heard when the robins meet and part

At the feast of apple bloom.

And I think when the trees display crown

Like the gleam of a resting dove,

Of a face that was framed in tresses brown

And aglow with a mother's love;

At the end of the orchard path she stands,

While I laugh at my manhood's doom.

As my spirit flies with lifted hands

To the feast of apple bloom.

When the rainbow paths of faded skies

Are restored with the diamond rain,

And the joys of my wasted paradise

Are returning to earth again.

It Is sadder than death to know how brief

Are the smiles that the dead assume;

But a moment allowed, a flying leaf

From the feast of apple bloom.