| |
| SHALL we meet no more, my love, at the binding of the sheaves, | |
| In the happy harvest-fields, as the sun sinks low, | |
| When the orchard paths are dim with the drift of fallen leaves, | |
| And the reapers sing together, in the mellow, misty eves: | |
| O, happy are the apples when the south winds blow! | 5 |
| |
| Love met us in the orchard, ere the corn had gathered plume,— | |
| O, happy are the apples when the south winds blow! | |
| Sweet as summer days that die when the months are in the bloom, | |
| And the peaks are ripe with sunset, like the tassels of the broom, | |
| In the happy harvest-fields as the sun sinks low. | 10 |
| |
| Sweet as summer days that die, leafing sweeter each to each,— | |
| O, happy are the apples when the south winds blow! | |
| All the heart was full of feeling: love had ripened into speech, | |
| Like the sap that turns to nectar in the velvet of the peach, | |
| In the happy harvest-fields as the sun sinks low. | 15 |
| |
| Sweet as summer days that die at the ripening of the corn,— | |
| O, happy are the apples when the south winds blow! | |
| Sweet as lovers’ fickle oaths, sworn to faithless maids forsworn, | |
| When the musty orchard breathes like a mellow drinking-horn, | |
| Over happy harvest-fields as the sun sinks low. | 20 |
| |
| Love left us at the dying of the mellow autumn eves,— | |
| O, happy are the apples when the south winds blow! | |
| When the skies are ripe and fading, like the colors of the leaves, | |
| And the reapers kiss and part, at the binding of the sheaves, | |
| In the happy harvest-fields as the sun sinks low. | 25 |
| |
| Then the reapers gather home, from the gray and misty meres;— | |
| O, happy are the apples when the south winds blow! | |
| Then the reapers gather home, and they bear upon their spears, | |
| One whose face is like the moon, fallen gray among the spheres, | |
| With the daylight’s curse upon it, as the sun sinks low. | 30 |
| |
| Faint as far-off bugles blowing, soft and low the reapers sung;— | |
| O, happy are the apples when the south winds blow! | |
| Sweet as summer in the blood, when the heart is ripe and young, | |
| Love is sweetest in the dying, like the sheaves he lies among, | |
| In the happy harvest-fields as the sun sinks low. | 35 |
| |
