Christina Georgina Rossetti



                   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 neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass
                   So empty-handed back.
                   Lilian and Lilias smiled in trudging by,
                   Their heaped-up basket teazed 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 thro' 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 neighbours 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.

                   
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