Page:Poems that every child should know (ed. Burt, 1904).djvu/250

212 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,

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,

The winds go howling through the night,

Girls, whose 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.

The fruitage of this apple-tree,

Winds and our flag of stripe and star

Shall bear to coasts that lie afar,

Where men shall wonder at the view,

And ask in what fair groves they grew;

And sojourners beyond the sea

Shall think of childhood's careless day,

And long, long hours of summer play,

In the shade of the apple-tree.

Each year shall give this apple-tree

A broader flush of roseate bloom,

A deeper maze of verdurous gloom,