There were four apples on the bough, | |
Half gold half red, that one might know | |
The blood was ripe inside the core; | |
The colour of the leaves was more | |
Like stems of yellow corn that grow | |
Through all the gold June meadow’s floor. | |
The warm smell of the fruit was good | |
To feed on, and the split green wood, | |
With all its bearded lips and stains | |
10 | Of mosses in the cloven veins, |
Most pleasant, if one lay or stood | |
In sunshine or in happy rains. | |
There were four apples on the tree, | |
Red stained through gold, that all might see | |
The sun went warm from core to rind; | |
The green leaves made the summer blind | |
In that soft place they kept for me | |
With golden apples shut behind. | |
The leaves caught gold across the sun, | |
20 | And where the bluest air begun |
Thirsted for song to help the heat; | |
As I to feel my lady’s feet | |
Draw close before the day were done; | |
Both lips grew dry with dreams of it. | |
In the mute August afternoon | |
They trembled to some undertune | |
Of music in the silver air; | |
Great pleasure was it to be there | |
Till green turned duskier and the moon | |
30 | Coloured the corn-sheaves like gold hair. |
That August time it was delight | |
To watch the red moons wane to white | |
’Twixt grey seamed stems of apple-trees; | |
A sense of heavy harmonies | |
Grew on the growth of patient night, | |
More sweet than shapen music is. | |
But some three hours before the moon | |
The air, still eager from the noon, | |
Flagged after heat, not wholly dead; | |
40 | Against the stem I leant my head; |
The colour soothed me like a tune, | |
Green leaves all round the gold and red. | |
I lay there till the warm smell grew | |
More sharp, when flecks of yellow dew | |
Between the round ripe leaves had blurred | |
The rind with stain and wet; I heard | |
A wind that blew and breathed and blew, | |
Too weak to alter its one word. | |
The wet leaves next the gentle fruit | |
50 | Felt smoother, and the brown tree-root |
Felt the mould warmer: I too felt | |
(As water feels the slow gold melt | |
Right through it when the day burns mute) | |
The peace of time wherein love dwelt. | |
There were four apples on the tree, | |
Gold stained on red that all might see | |
The sweet blood filled them to the core: | |
The colour of her hair is more | |
Like stems of fair faint gold, that be | |
60 | Mown from the harvest’s middle floor. |